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with some help from an alley cat and his girlfriend's breast implants. >> we just rushed him. >> kroft: you mean guns out? "fbi, don't move!" >> i asked him to identify himself and that didn't go over well. he asked me to "f"-ing identify myself. and i asked hihi i said, "are you whitey bulger?" he said, "yes." >> kroft: when you became a made man, when you were formally inducted in... into la cosa nostra...? >> gotti, , .: you like the wayy at word sounds, "la cosa nostra"? how it flows on your tongue? >> kroft: no one is likely to be watching this story more closely than the fbi. >> you break rules, you end up in a dumpster. >> kroft: it's the first extended tv intervieiejohn gotti, jr., has ever done. he talks about his life as a made member of the gambino crime family, following in the footsteps of his famous father, the dapper don, john gotti, jr. obviously, he spent a lot of time in prison for murder. how do you justify that? >> i don't know if you can ever justify murder. i don't know if you can justify it. but i can make... i i n make
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you want to hear it? >> kroft: sure. >> okay. >> the fact that they allowed an fbi agent to infiltrate thei ganization, and add d that the fact that i'm a cuban-born playing an italian who was able to fool them-- it's an amazing insulto them. keteyian: jack garcrc learned the language of la costa nostra, infiltrated the mob, and took down one of the most powerful mobsters in america. how did he do it and whys he now talking on "60 minutes?" >> youounow what? somebody comes after me, they
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ka seltzer plus liquid gels rush liqiqd fast relief to your tough cold symptoms. and they outsell mucinex liquid gels 2 to 1. alka seltzer plus liquid gels. >> kroft: good evening. i'm steve kroft. tonight, tales of murder, mayhem, and the mafia-- "60 minutes presents: mob stories." we begin with charlie and carol gasko. they were an elderly couple who moved to santa monica, california, sometime in early 1997 to begin a new phase of their life. for the next 14 years, they did
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memorable. and as we first reported back in 2013, they would be of absotely no interest, if it weren't for the fact tt "charlie gasko" turned out to be james "whitey" bulger, the notorious boston gangster and longtime fugitive, who is now in prison serving two lifetime sentences. "carol gasko" was actually catherine greig, whitey's longtime girlfriend and caregiver. the story of how they managed to elude an iernational manhunt for so long while hiding in plain sight is interesting. and tonight, you'l'lhear about it from the gaskos' neighbors, and from federal agents who finally unraveled the case, with the help of a boob job and an alley cat. if you're forced into retirement, with a comfortable nest egg and a desire to be left completely alone, there is no better place than santa monica, california. this low-key seaside suburb of l.a. is shar by transients and tourists, hippies and hedonists,
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citizens attracted to the climate and an abundance of inexpensive, rencontrolled apartments just a few blocks from the oceanan places like the princess eugenia on third street, which is where charlie and carol gasko, a childless couple from chicago, lived for 14 years without attractingnguch attention from longtime neighbors or landlords. josh bond is the building manager. what were they like? >> josh bond: they were,ike, the nice retired old couple that lived in the apartment next to me. >> kroft: gogo tenants? >> bond: excellentntenants. never complained, always paid rent on time. >> kroft: in cash? >> bond: in cash. >> kroft: janus goodwin lived down the hall. >> janus goodwin: they hadd& nothing. and they never went out. they never had food delivered. e never dressed nicely. >> kroft: you thought they were poor? >> goodwin: yes, without a doubt. >> kroft: the one thing everyone remembers about the gaskos is that they loved animals and always made a fuss over the ones in the neighborhood. barbara gluck remembers that carol gasko always fed a stray
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>> barbara gluck: she would, you know, pet it and be swswt to it, and then she would put a plate of food, like, out here. >> kroft: and what about charlie gasko? >> gluck: you know, he always had a hat on and dark glasses. i have to say it was mysterious to me, why a lovely woman like that was hanging out with that guy, t(at old, grumpy man. i never could figure that one out. until i heard they had 800,000- something dollars in the wall. ( laughter ) and then i went, "oh, okay," you know? >> kroft: money wasn't the onlnl thing found in the gaskos' apartment on june 22, 2011, when the fbi stopped by and ended what it called the most tensive manhunt in the bureau's history. >> scott garriola: weapons all over the apartment. i mean, weapons by his nightstand, weapons under the windowsill-- shotguns, mini- rugers, rifles. >> kft: what had started out as a routine day for special
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charge of hunting fugitives in l.a., would turn into one of the most interesting days of his career. after getting a call to stake out a building in santa monica he notified his backup team with the l.a.p.d. >> garriola: i had four guys working that day, and i said, "we got a tip on whitey bulger, and i'll see you there in about an hour." and invariably the texts would return, "who's whitey bulger?" >> kroft: reallyly >> garriola: yeah, a few of them. so i had to remind them... gently remind them who whitey bulger was. >> kroft: that he was number one of the fbi's most wanted list. >> garriola: number... number one. number one, yeah. big east coast figure, but... so, on the west cocot, not so much. imagine any cartel leader... >> kroft: the cops in l.a. were focused on gangbangers and cartel members, not some retired irish mobster who hadn't been spotted in 16 years. but then, , w mobsters have everer been as infamous in a city as whitey bulger was in boston, and his reputation was for more than just being gruy. besides extortion and flooding the city with cocoine, bulger
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executions-- some at close range, some with a hail of bullets, and at least one by strangulation, after which, it's said, he took a nap. special l ent rich teahan, who ran the fbi's whitey bulger fugitive task force, had heard it all. charged with9 counts of he was charged with other crimes. he was a scourge to ththsociety in south boston, his own community. >> kroft: he was also a scourge to the fbi, and a great source of embarrassment&to teahan, special agent phil torsney, and others on the fbi task force. years earlier, whitey bulger had infiltrated the boston office of the fbi and bought off agents, who protected him and plied him with informamaon, including the tip that allowed bulger to flee just days before he was to be indicted. >> phil torsney: we really had to catch this guy to establish credibility after all the other sues. and it was just a matter of bringing this guy back to boston. >> kroft: torsney, who's now
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macdonald joined the task forc in 2009. the joke was bulger was on the fbi's "l"lst wanted list." there hadn't been a credible lead in more than a decade. and their efforts in bulger's old neighborhood of south boston were met with mistrust and ridicule. >> torsney: some people, they told us right out front, "you guys aren't looking for that guy." people just made the assumption we had him stashed somewhere. i mean, people really thought that kind of thing. >> tommy macdold: despite that miset that "we're not going to help you," the fbi still got it done. >> kroft: took 16 years. >> macdonald: took 16 years. yeah, this was not a typical fugitive. >> kroft: the fbi says bulger had planned his getaway years s advance, with money set aside and a fake identity for a "thomas baxter." during his first two years on the lam, bulger was in tkuch with friends and family, shuttlininbetween new york, chicago, and the resort town of grand isle, louisiana, where he rented a home until his identity was compromised. after that, it seemed as if
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face of the earth, except for the alleged sightings all over how many of these tips do you think might have been true? >> torsney: boy, there was thousands and thousands of tips, and i think... i d d't think any of them were true. >> kroft: one of the obstacles was, there were really no good photographs of bulger or his longtime live-e- girlfriend catherine greig, a former dental hygienist. the fbi often noted that the couple shared a love of animals, especially dogs and cats, and asked veterinarians to be on the lookout. there e re reports that greiei once had breast implants and other plastic surgery in boston, so the task force reached out to physicians. eventually, they got a call from a dr. matthias donelan, who had loloted her files in storage. >> macdonald: i was trying to leave the office a little early to catch one of my kids' ballgames. and i said, "well, listen, i'm going to swing by in the morning anpick those up." and they said to me, "dodoou want t t photos, too?" and i said, "you have photos?"
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photos." i said, "we'll be there in 15 minutes." >> kro: the breast implant lead produced a treasure trove of high-resolution catherine greig photographs that would help crack the case. the fbi decided to switch strategies, going after the girlfriend in order catch the gangster. >> this is an announcement by the fbfb.. >> kroft: the fbi created this public service announcement. >> ...60-year-old greig is the girlfriend of 81-year-old bulger. >> kroft: it ran it in 14 markets on daytimemealk shows aimed at women. >> call the tip line at 1-800- call-fbi. >> kroft: and it didn't take long. the very next morning, the bulger task force got three messages from someone that used to live in santa monica, and w w 100% certain that charlie and carol gasko, apartment 303 at the princess eugenia apartments, were the people they were looking for. the descriptions and the age difference matched, and deputy u.s. marshall neil sullivan, who handled the lead, said there was another piece of tantalizing
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>> neil sullivan: the tipster specifically described that they were caring for this cat and their love for this cat. so that was just one piece of the puzzle on the tip that just added up to saying, "if this isn't them, it's something we better check out immediately because it sure sounds like them." >> kroft: a search of the fbi's computer database for the gaskos raised another red fg-- not for what it found, but for what it d dn't. >> sullivan: basicicly, like, they were ghosts... >> kroft: no driver's license... >> sullivan: exactly. no driver's license, no california i.d., like they didn't exist. >> kroft: that's the apartment. >> garriola: that corner on the third floor. >> kroft: : the right-hand side? >> garriola: yep. >> kroft: by early afternoon, fbi agent scott garriola had set up a number of surveillance posts, and had already met with apartmenmanager josh bond to talk aut his tenants. >> bond: he closed the door, threw down a fololr and opened it up and said, "are these the people that live in apartment 303?" >> kroft: did you say anything when you saw the pictures? >> bond: my initial reaction was, "holy ( bleep )." >> kroft: you're living next door t ta gangster.
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really know who he was. >> kroft: but it didn't take him long to figure it out. while the fbi was mulling its options, bond logged on to bulger's wikipedia page. >> bond: and i'm'must kind of scrolling down. it's like, "oh, wow, this guy's serious." it's, like, murders and extortion. and then, i get to the bottom and there's this... this thing. it's like, from one of his old, you knowowpeople saying, "wellll the last time i saw him, he... he said, you know, when he goes out, he's... he's going to have guns and he's going to be ready to take people with him. i was like, "ooh, maybe i shouldn't be involved this." ( laughs ) >> kroft: bond told the fbi he wasn't g gng to knock on the gaskos' door, because there was a note posted expressly asking people not to bother them. carol had told the neighbors that charlie was showing signs of dementia. >> garriola: so we were back there... kroft: so, garriola devised a ruse involving the gaskos' storage locker in the garage. >> garriola: it had the name "gasko" across it and "apartment 303." >> kroft: he had the manager call to tell them m at their locker hadadeen broken into, and that he needed someone to come down to see if anything was missing.
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would be right down. >> garriola: we just rushed him. >> kroft: you mean guns out? "fbi, don't move!" >> garriola: gave the words, "hey, fbi." "get your hands up." hands went up right away. and then, at that moment, we told him get down onis knees and he gave us... ( laughs ) yeah, he gave usus "i ain't getting down on my "f"-ing knees." >> kroft: didn't want to get his pants dirty. >> garriola: didn't want to get his pants dirty. you know, wearing white and seeing the oil on the ground, i guess he didn't want to get down in oil. >> kroft: : en at 81, this was a a man used to being in control. >> garriola: i asked him to identify himself and that didn't go over well. he asked me to "f"-ing identify myself, which i did. and i asked him, i said, "are you whitey bulger?" he said, "yes." just about that moment, someone catches my attention from a few feet away by the elevator shaft. >> kroft: it was janus goodwin from the third floor, coming to do her laundry. >> goodwin: and i said, "excuse me. i think i can help you. this man has dementia, so if he's acting oddly, you know, that could be why." >> garriola: immediately, what
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god, i just arrestetean 81- year-old man with alzheimer's who thinks he's whitey bulger. what is he going to tell me next, he's elvis?" so i said, "do me a favor. this woman over here sayyou have a touch of alzheimer's," and he said, "don't listen to her, she's "f"-ing nuts. he says, "i'm james bulger." >> kroft: a few minutes later, he confirmed it, signing a consent form alling the fbi to search his apartment >> garriola: i did ask him, i said, "hey, whiteyey i said, "aren't you relieved that you don't have to look over your shoulder anymore and, you know, it's come to an end?" and he said, "are you ( bleep ) nuts?" >> kroft: but, in some ways, whitey bulger and caththine greig had already bebe prisoners in apartment 303, which appeared to be a mixture of the murderous and the mundane. alongside the weapons and all the money, they had stockpiled a lifetime supply of cleansers, creams, and detergents. the fbi took special interest in a collection of 64-ounce bottles withhite socks stretchedover the top. >arriola: i said, "hehe
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are these some kind of molotov cocktail you're making?" he goes, "no," he said, "i buy tube socks from the 99 cent store, and they're too tight on my calves and that's the way i stretch them out." i said, "why you shopping at the 99 cent store?e? yoyohave half a million n llars under your bed." he goes, "i had to make the money last." >> kroft: its been said that one of the reasons it took so long to catch whitey bulger is that people were looking for a gangster, and bulger, whether he liked it or not, had ceased to be one. >> torsney: he said it was hard to keep up that mindset of a criminal. and that's parof the reason he came down to that garage. it was hard to stay on that edge, that criminal edge, after being on the lam as a regular citizen for 15 years. >> kroft: the master manipulator gave credit to catherine greig for keeping him crime-free, hoping it would mitigate her sentence. she is now serving eight years for harboring a fugitive. on the long plane ride back to boston, bulger told his captors that he became obsesesd with not getting caught, and would do
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meant obeying the law. whitey bulr's biggest fear, they said, was being discovered dead in his s artment and he had a plan to avoid it. >> torsney: if he became ill and knew he was on his deathbed, he'd go down to arizona, crawl down in the bottom of one of these mines, and die and decompose. and hope.. hope thatate would never find him and still be looking... looking for him forever. >> kroft: as for a@l that money that was seid from whitey lger's apartment, feferal prosececors are preparing to distribute nearly $822,000 to the families of his murder victims and three men who were extorted by the gangster. >> cbs monon watch update onsored by lincoln financial, calling all chief life officers. >> glor: good evening. china's new anti-terrorism law approved today requires tech companies the share information
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apple wants samsung to pay another $180 million for product infringement. and the new "star wars" movie hit $1 billion in ticket sales in 12 days, fastest in history. i'm jeff glor, cbs news. nobody told me to expect it... ...intercourse thax's painful due to menopausal changes. it's n likely to go awawaon its own. so let's do something about it. premarin vaginal cream can help.
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>> kroft: for nearly three decades, the name "gotti" has been synonymous with organized crime in america. cording to the federal government, john gotti, sr., and later his son, john, jr., ran the gambino crime family, the largest, mt influential mafia family in the country. gotti, sr., who died in prison 13 years ago, was a ruthless gangster who craved celebrity. the son, if you are to belifve his story, wanted out,nd john gotti, jr., wants people to
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after the federal government put him on trial four times in five years without getting a convictien, he agreed to sit wn with us in 2010 and talk about his family saga in his first extended television interview. he wanted to be the only person we talked to on camera for this story, and to have his lawyer by his side to make sururhe didn't say anything that could be used to indict him again, because no one was more likely to be watching this story more closely than the fbi. >> john gotti, jr.: my father was my cause. if my father wasn't in that life, i probably wouldn't have been in the street life, either. whatever he was is what i wanted to be. ananif he decided the next day, "you know what? i don't like this anymore. i'm going to be a butcher," i would tell him, "i hope you have a smock for me." that's the way i feel. that's the way i felt. >> kroro: you can tell he still worships his father. >> gotti, jr.: handsome as ever. handsome as ever. >> kroft: not just with the love
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same misguided romanticism that has long drawn the news media and the public to the mob culture. and john gotti, sr., was the most famous mobster of his generation. he ascended to the top of the gambino crime family by organizing the assassination of his predecessor, paul castellano, outside a popular manhattan steak house. it was a stylistic statement that gotti, sr., would accentuate with $2$200 italian suits and hand-painted ties, earning him a certain brand of celebrity and a nickname, "the dapper don." in new%york, a city that worships power of ankind, gotti's reached beyond gambling and loan-sharking into the garment center, the garbage business, and the construction industry. and he wanted everyone to know what he did, as long as they couldn't prove it. now, a friend of your father's told me there is nothing he loved better than being a gangster.
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nothing. >> kroft: what did he love about it? >> gotti, jr.: everything. there was nothing he didn't like about it. my father lived that life 24/7. 24/7. in fact, his wife and kids were second to the streets. he loved it. he loved the code. he loved the action. he loved the chase. >> kroft: was that more important than money? >> gotti, jr.: he had money. he used to say, if a guy was saving money or putting money away, and he was a street guy, he would say, "what's on his mind? what has he got planned? you know, at the end of the day, we're all going to jail. what's'se going to do with that money?" >> kroft: is that the way he looked at life? >> gotti, jr.: he felt that anybody who really truly lived in the streets-- not the fringe players, not the frauds, not the pretenders-- if you really, truly lilid it like john did, at the end of the day, you got to die or go to jail. that's the rules. that's the way it was. >> kroft: did he talk about what he did for a living? >> gotti, jr.: no, he didn't sit at the table and say, "you know, by the way, my t te from the numbers rackets are up this
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it didn't go like that, nothing like that. >> kroft: and he didn't have conversations like that with the... with some of his friends. >> gotti, jr.: no. other than my father being away om home-- you know, being incarcerated-- and the hours that he kept, our house was a pretty normal house. >> kro: gotti says it wasn't until he was 14, when he was shipped off to boarding school at the new york military academy, that he found out exactly who his father was and what he did. and he learned it while watching a news program with his fellow cadets. what was the reaction of your classmates? gotti, jr.: i guessssaybe some of them were intimidated. but most of them thought it was pretty cool. "does your father..." they said, "your father kill people? does your father beat people up?" "not around the house." >> kroft: at somompoint, you must have come to the realization that he did, outside of the house. >> gotti, jr.: probably. but in frontf me? no. >> kroft: how do you, as a young man, react to that? >> gotti, jr.: i'm howard beach. i'm from howard beach.
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a young age, that you don't call the cops for nothing. we take care of our own problemsms and pretty much all your uncles, cousins, friends, father, they're all uncing around the street, in one shape or form. and this is the way it is. as 14-year-old kids, 15-year-old kids, we'd go up to the boulevard where we hung out, and we'd talk about, "y, tough break, you know. tony just got ten years. he's going to jail.. having a big party for him over there." "oh, yeah, good, good, good." and his sons are, you know, sitting next to you. it's just... it was normal conversation for us. >> kroft: you knew people were breaking the law. >> gotti, jr.: sure. re. >> kroft: and what you're saying is that wasn't considered necessarily a bad thing? >> gotti, jr.: no. no, not at a. >> kroft: because? >> gotti, jr.: because everybody did itit you ow what? the guy next to you was a car thief. the guy next to you on your left-hand side, he was a book maker.
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>> kroft: it was the summer afafr he graduated from m litary school that gotti discovered what he thought was his calling, hanging around his father's headquarters at the bergin hunt and fish club. >> gotti, jr.: i'd go to the bergin hunt and fish c cb all the time. i wanted to be around him. and he had that type of a personality. and i would just watch. so you're sitting around the social club, andhey'd be pling cards and they're hanging out. and they're breaking balls, and cooking, andndaughing, and commiserating. and everything's going on. and you're right there. and you're saying, "this is where i belong. >> kroft: when you became a made man, when you were formally inducted in... into la cosa nostra, was that a... was that a big deal for him? >> gotti, jr.: you like the way that word sounds, "la cosa nostra"? how it flows on your tongue? >> kroft: no, i... i'm trying to find another word. you... you don't like "mob." you don't like "mafia." >> gotti, jr.: i was a "street" guy. i was in the streets. >> kroft: okay. >> gotti, jr.: and you know, when my father embraced me, put his arm around me, and looked at
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around guy, a bounce-around guy like himself, proudest moment of my life. was the proudest moment of my life because i was slowly becoming like hihi >> kroft: obviously, he spent a lot of time in prison for murder. how do you justify that? >> gotti, jr.: i don't know if you can ever j jtify murder. i don'n'know if you can juststy it. but i can make... i can make some type of an argument. you want to hear it? >> kroft: sure. >> gotti, jr.: okay. john was a part of the streets. he swore that that was his life. he swore, "i'm going to live and die by the rules of the streets, the code of the streets." and everybody that john's accused of killing or may have killed or wavted to kill or tried to kill, was a part of that same street. that was a part of the same world, the same code. and my father was always said, in his mind, "you break rules, you end upn a dumpster." "if i break rules," meaning himself, "they're going to put two in my hat and put me in a dumpster. that's the way it works." so, am i justifying it? no, i'm explaining it. >> kroft: and you were comfortable living in that
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>> gotti, jr.: when you don't know much else, yeah. yeah, i guess so. i guess so. when you don't know much else, i guess so. >> kroft: you thought you were capable of killing somebody? >> gotti, jr.: i don't think anybody... i don't know if anybody everhinks of themselves as capable of killing anybody, until they're put intoo that position. >> kroft: you know, i want to ask you, "have you ever killed anybody? but you're not going to answer that question, are you? >> gotti, jr.: first of f l, it's a ridiculous s estion. second of... if you go by the government, who didn't i kill? >> kroft: :y the late 1990s, he learned that the federal vernment was preparing to file charges against him for racketeering, and he began to wonder whether he had the stomach for the job. i mean, there was a lot of treachery. >> gotti, jr.: oh, absolutely. ththe's treachery in every... there's treachery in the corporate world-- equally... i have to say... i can't say more so. equally so in the streets. >> kroft: 3till, it was dealt with a little differently on the streets, though? >> gotti, jr.: careers are made
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guys are bankrupted. yeah, i can see where you're going with this. ( laughter ) >> kroft: did you ever worry about getting whacked? >> gotti, jr.: eveve day. every day. that's a possibility. it's a possibility that something could happen to you every day of your life. and you know something? when... when y y hang out in the streets, you're hanging with a different type of a person. you know, you don't know what's going to happen. you know, you can be with... tony's here today, then tony's dodog ten years tomorrow. billy's here today, and then you never see him again. who knows? anything's possible. it's a volatile existence. >> kroft: today, gotti is a free man and back living in his family's two-acre compound, with a swswming pool and stables, in the fashionable village of oyster bay long island. this is a very nice piece of property. >> gottijr.: thank you. >> kroft: he claims the property s purchased with income from legitimama businesses, and the government has been unable to prove otherwise.
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and he is deeply in debt after spending millions on his legal bills. he says the family is getting by on a modest income from commercial real estate properties. >> gotti, jr.: this little guy was born the first day of jury selection in my third trial. >> kroft: gotti is now 51, married, with six ildren ranging in age from eight to 24. he says he is still trying to acclimate himself to normal family life. >> gotti, jr.: i was in the life. i was active in the life. i embraced the life and everything thahawent with it. but a lot of what you've heard and seen about me is fiction. there's fact and`there's fiction, and a lot,of it is fiction. >> kroft: was thereranything about the life other than your father that you liked and enjoyed? >> gotti, jr.: there's a lot to like about the streets. there's a lot of glamour there. you know, there's a lot of what you believe to be camaraderie. >> kroft: the glamour part. tell me about the glamour partrt >otti, jr.: well, there's the suits, there's the cars.
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there's the attention. the deferencyou're given, no matter where you go, you know. it means a lot. you feel like you're a special kind of guy. >> kroft: gotti says he's explored the possibility of leaving the new york area for north carolina or florida, but some of his children are resisting. he says he's interested in writing a book about his life. >> gotti, jr.: i... i've been writinfor several years, exploring a literary career. >> kroft: you wrote a children's book. >> gotot, jr.: i did. i i d. while i was in ray brook. sure, it was fun. it was fun. it was fun, because it... the fact that i... i had written it, and my cellmate, who was doing 17 years for bank robbery, brian lilierman-- sweetheart of a kid- - he was... he's somewhat of an artist, so he did all the illustrations. and i couldn't get it published. i couldn't get it published, because everywhere we went, they wanted my life. "no, we want to know about the juicy stuff, and then we'll do that." and i wasn't interested in doing it.
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>> kroft: in the years since we conducted that interview, john gotti did end up self-publishing an autobiography called "shadow of my father". he's been working on a movie version that he says`will star john travolta playing his dad. it's scheduled to be shot in 2016. >> gotti, jr.: i'm blessed. blessed. >> kroft: why do you feel that way? you're alive... >> gotti, jr.: i'm alive. i'm free. my children are healthy, which is most important. i have the liberty to get up every morning and embrace my children, spend time with my family. i'm blessed. if tomorrow morning i walked in and saw an oncologist and he told me, "you have terminal cancer," i'm ahead of the game. i can't complain. and i won't complain.
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i'm james brown with scores from nfl today. k.c. extends its win streak to nine and cnches playoff spot. pittsburgh gets the a a.c. north title.e. e jets have an overtime win. houston rolls and stays atop the a.f.c. south. indy keeps its playoff hopes alive. carolina loses, ending its perfect season. and arizona clenches a first-round buy. for more cbs news and information, go to cbssports.com and only one me. i'll take those odds. bebenstoppable.
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on average, it takes three hundred americans wowoing for a solid yearar to make as much money as one top ceo. it's called the wage gap. and the republicans will make it worse by lowering taxes r those at the top andetting corporations write eir own rules. hillary clinton will work to close the wage gap. equal pay for women to raise incomes for families,
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lower taxes for the middle class. shshgets the job done fofous. i'm hillary clinton and i approve this message. >> kroft: few institutions protect their secrets as papaionately, and more violently, than the mafia. being accepted into the inner sanctum of the mob demands from its members a blood oath of loyalty, known aq "omerta". imagine then what it w w like when a cuban-american fbi agent infiltrated the most feared crime family in america posing as an italian gangster. back in 2008, that agent, jack garcia, came out from undercover for the first time and told armen keteyian how he did it. how he was able to fool the wisest of the wise guys, delivering an acting performance
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produce. >> joaquin "jack" garcia: i always played the big role. i mean, my mantra s, you know, "think big, be big." bnd i was able to be the type of guy that never in a million years would somebody suspect that i was an agent. >> keteyian: joaquin "jack" garcia may be the most unlikely law enforcement figure in history-- all 390 pounds of him- - whose e rformance was so convincing that he was offered the mafia's highest honor-- to become a "made man" in the mob. >> garcia: in the mob culture, that is the holy grail. for an associate to be proposed for membership into la cosa nostra is what these criminals aspire to do. >> keteyian: to become a made man. >> garcia: to become a made man. the fact that they allowed an fbi agent to infiltrate their organization, and add to that the fact that i'm a cuban-born playing an italian who was able to fool them-- it's an amazing insult to them.
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invitation to enter the mob capped a career working a staggering 100 major undercover cases. but none compared with jack falcone, the character he created in 2002 to get inside the gambino crime family, playing the role of an investor in a strip club that the gambin and one of their ruthless leaders, greg depalma, re muscling in on. >> garcia: jack falcone entered the scene in the bronx, new york. he was a guy who was a jewel thief, and he was a guy who was an extortionist and a hijacker. i drove a fancy car. i mean, i had the rolex presidents' watch. i had the obligatory three-carat diamond pinky. i had the cross. then of, cjurse, suits-- all got to be italian silk. you u t to get your brionini you got to get your zegna. lucky got my size-- there aren't too many zegnas or brionis in my size. it's this paage that you want to create. you don't play the role of this big money launderer r d then you show up in a yugo. >> keteyian: garcia was the complete package-- 20 years
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combined with a style and charm that mobsters could not resist. >> garcia: i was this big guy with a lot of cash who everybody wanted to be around. so i would disarm the person by always being nice. "hey, you'reooking great today. where did you get those nice threads, man? look at you, like a million dollars."" "oh, yeah, i look good." "oh, yeah, yeah, look at this. i love those blue shoes." everybody loves a happy guy. >> keteyian: happy jack. >> garcia: happy jack. worked%for me. >> keteyian: new york fbi agent nat parisi hand-picked garcia for the job, becoming his handler in the case, his sole lifeline to the outside world ring the two-and-a-hf-year investigation. >> nat p pisi: when he enters s room full of wise guys, they're all going to want to know, who is that man? >> keteyian: how do you train a cuban-american to become an italian-american and pass the wise guy test? >> p pisi: i'm an italian-n- american, and i shared with jack, you know, my experiences growing up. but he and i were convinced that
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>> garcia: so o t decided to come up with this school that we called it "the mob school." >> keteyian: excuse me? >> garcia: yes, it was called the mob school. >> keteyian: a form of higher education that included, of all things, a trip to the grocery ore, where garcia learned one of the mob's golden rulele- nener carry your cash in a wallet. wrap it in a rubber band pulled from a head of broccoli. >> garcia: you would take this off, as you can see. and then you would just wrap itt up. there you are. this is the way you operated with your money. everybody just simply carries a wad of cash. >> keteyian: with a broccoli band. >> garcia: with a broccoliand. that was one of f ose little ththgs that could be big things down the line if you didn't... if you didn't prepare right for your role. because unlike, like i said, in "the sopranos," where there re multiple takes, there was only take, and that was it. and it h h to be a good one. >> keteyian: the training also required garcia to spend countless hours in front of the television. do i have this right? you actually watched the food channel? >> garcia: yes. you u ck up little phraseses
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know, and all these little things. and i would watch the way the food was prepared, what are the ingredients that went in, the pronunciation of the ingredient because all... a lot of conversations all dealt with "eh, how's your food? how's your pasta fagiole?" "eh, it's good. you could add a little more of this, a little bit of that." and it was always like there were... everybody was a food critic in the mob. "oh, forget about this. let's go down the block, this guy makes it better than this guy." like being cuban, i get caught up sometimes... like i would say, "manicotti". it's not "manicotti," it's "manigot". >> keteyian: for you, a single mispronunciation, a single misstep, the wrong w wd at the wrong time, the alarm bells go off. >> garcia: exactly. and i couldn't afford having alarm bells going f. i wanted things to constantly be without any suspicion. >> keteyian: garcia left nothing to chance out of respect and fear for the man at the center f his investigation-- gambino capo greg depalma, head of the family's operations in new york's affluent westchester county.
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as an old-school mobster with a hair-trigger temper. >> garcici greg depalma, i wouou best describe him as the devil incarnate, a very evil man, very evil man. >> keteyian: correct me if i'm wrong-- who once used a power tool... >> garcia: yes. >eteyian: ...on someoeo's head... >> garcia: that is correct. >> keteyian: ...who he thought was stealing from him? >> garcia: yes. >> keteyian: a man not given to subtlety. >> garcia: he just didn't care. and he took his oath and he really liviv by it, where the family came first-- that if your child was dying, laying in bed with few minutes to live, or seconds, and the boss calls you, you better leave t tt child and go see the boss because that's your real family. >> keteyian: before long, jack fafcone won over depalma, first by giving him cartons of counterfeit cigarettes f f his birthday, and then by offering him what became an endless stream of luxury goods, all supplied to jack by the fbi. there's a rd for the kind of
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>> garcia: i'm an earner. >> keteyian: what do you mean by that? >> garcia: being an earner is a very important thing. an earner is a kind of guy who makes money, not only for hihielf and his skipper,r,ut also for the family. and greg depalma saw me as an earner. >> keteyian: for two years, falcone wore a wire taped to his ehest, and for good measure, gave depalma this cell phone with a bugging device that allowed the fbi to track depalma's location and listen in on his conversations, even when the phone was turned off. falcone became like a son to depapaa, at his side whilelee and other mobsters concocted schemes to extort businesses, sell fake sports memorabilia, and collect a tax on nearly every union construction site in new york. >> garcia: greg depalma told me that, in new york city, 2% of all construction goes to the mob. >> keteyian: yououe talking
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business... >> keteyian: ...of millions of dollars? >> garcia: that's the mob tax, it's called. >> keteyian: in building their case against the gambinos, garcia and his handler, nat parisi, would meet up to five times a day, often in public places like this home depot, exchanging evidence and infofmation. >> garcia: i would come in with an envelope that would contain all the recording devices which i wore. >> parisi: i'd also brief him on what we knew, the intelligence that we were gathering. so that he could be safer and do his job out there better. >> keteyian: but fororll of the information they exchanged, there was one extraordinary conversation captured on tape, an offer from depalma to make falcone a "made member" of the mob. >>reg depalma: so there is only one thing i'm pushing to do asap, is you. [no audio] everything else. >> falcone: well, i appreciate that, buddy. >> depalma: that would be the second guy. i mean, you want it, right?< >> falcone: yeah, of course. i'm honored for that. i'm even honored that you know, you u ow... that i will nener let you down, either. >> keteyian: what's going through your mind when you hear those words, "you're going to become a made man." >> falcone: i couldn't believe it. and i feel, i said, "wow, we're here, we've really come a long
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hehe i am, an fbi agent.t. he's trusted me so much that he would propose me, considering that this is a seasoned, hardcore mobst. >> keteyian: there had to be some sort of escape plan if things went wrong. if you were asked to kill somebody, what was the out? >> garcia: the scenario i set up if i was ever going to be involved, et's take a ride, jack. we're going to go take care of this guy." i was going to have a heart atatck. so picture this-- all of a sudden we got to do somebody, i'm going to start wailing, on the ground, they're going to stop what they're doing and they're going to try to take me to the doctor. and i would do it. so i had this all programmed in my mind. >> keteyeyn: but in february,, 2005, garcia's life as jack falcone unraveled inside this bloomingdales department store, when he acted more like a cop than a criminal. it hapapned in the house wares section, when he watched a gambino capo named robert vaccaro attack another capo, known as "petey chops," with a heavy crystal candlestick. >> garcia: he takes it, cracks him ononhe head, and you hear
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gushing. he drops straight down. and i'm sitting there going, "i don't believe what's going on. i just saw an assault going on here." >> keteyian: in the house wares section. garcia: in the housuswares section, president's day at bloomingdales, white plains. >> keteyian: doesn't mafia law dictate that you get in on this beating? >> garcia: you're right. i'm saying, "okay, nowi think i messed up royally here." because, number onon i didn't take any licks at this guy, petey chops. i should have been, you know, kicking him, banging him, some way of something, slapping him around. i didn't do that. >> keteyian: a potential fatal mistake for you? >> garcia: i thought that that incident, they looked at me after that, a little... a little different. >> keteyian: the fbi was so concerned that garcia had blown his cover and was about to be killed that it pulled the plug on the investigation. but by now, the bureau had gathered enough evidence to take down the hierarchy of the gambino crime family, including greg depalma and 31 other associates. all pled guilty except depalmama who insisted on going to trial.
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trusted as jack falcone turned right before his eyes into fbi agent jack garcia. >> keteyian: describe the look on greg depalma's face when you're testifying against him in court. >> garcia: o it was classic. he'sooking at me. you know, you could tell, like, if he could just come... get his hands around my neck, you know, he'd just take me out. and i'm walking out of the court room. i had to pass by his table, and he just looked at me and&he said to me, you k kw, you're going to have to probably blot this out because "you [no audio]" you know, so... so i just walked away... and, you know... >> keteyian: frothe bottom of his heart. >> garcia: from the bottom of his heart. >> keteyeyn: depalma was sentenced to 12 years in prison. and while garcia says he is proud of the outcome of the case, he's angry over the decision to end the investigation, a decision that kept him from being the first law enenrcement agent in history to become a made member of the mob. but mark mershon, then the head of the fbi's new york office,
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one of their own. >> mark mershon: thehe is a risk/reward relationship that we're simply not willing to take on. but i will tell you that, by anybody's estimate, jack garcia waone of just a handfufuin the entire 100-y-yr history of the fbi to be both so successful and so prolific. >> keteyian: he was that good. >> mshon: he was truly, truly outstanding. >> keteyian: retired from the fbi in 2008 after 26 years,, garcia wrote a best-selling book, published by a cbs sister company. he came out of the shadows, defiant in the face of the risk to his life. why in the world do this interview on "60 minutes?" why put yourself out in the public this way? >> garcia: why should i be walking around hiding as to who i i ? and i know there's these safety issues and all that. but you know what? it's just... i equate this to, like, bullies when you're growing up. bullies will pick on the weak.
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camera, walk around with the silly glasses and a hat and the blot-out face, you know what? i'm afraid of them? i'm not the bad guy here, i'm the good guy. >> keteyian: you had more than enough people that wanted you dead. >> garcia: that is true. could it happen? absolutely. but you know what? somebody comes after me, they better come in numbers, because i'm ready for them. >> for a look at how "60 minutes" reports its stories, as well as interviews with correspondents and producers, go to 60minutevertime.com. sponsored by pfizer. and i quit smoking with chantix. i don't know that i can put into words how happy i was when i quit. it's like losing some baggage, i don't have to carry it around with me anymore. chantix made it possible for me to quit smoking. along with support, chantix (vareniclili) is proven to help people quit smoking. chantix definitely helped reduce my urge to smoke. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions whihi taking or after stopping chantix.
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