and he was the one who turned against john gotti and is responsible for john gotti being convicted and testified against him and casso was the backup, the government also gave the cooperation deal so he would be available to testify against gotti if needed. it turned out that the government never needed casso because sammy did the job. not only that, so they cut him free for the cooperation agreement and he did not like that and they are going to claim that he really was not cooperating properly and therefore the government was not bound. that is the whole purpose of the agreement, the judge then has the discretion to sentence someone much more leniently because of their cooperation so casso was cut loose by the government and he complained about it in the case went through the court system and the appellate court and i sentenced him for life because as part of his cooperation agreement, he had to confess to all the crimes he committed and he appeared before me and actually admitted to killing 18 people or being responsible for the killing of 18 people and that means he had to go to ja

and he was the one who turned against john gotti and is responsible for john gotti being convicted and testified against him and casso was the backup, the government also gave the cooperation deal so he would be available to testify against gotti if needed. it turned out that the government never needed casso because sammy did the job. not only that, so they cut him free for the cooperation agreement and he did not like that and they are going to claim that he really was not cooperating properly and therefore the government was not bound. that is the whole purpose of the agreement, the judge then has the discretion to sentence someone much more leniently because of their cooperation so casso was cut loose by the government and he complained about it in the case went through the court system and the appellate court and i sentenced him for life because as part of his cooperation agreement, he had to confess to all the crimes he committed and he appeared before me and actually admitted to killing 18 people or being responsible for the killing of 18 people and that means he had to go to ja

for example if it was john gotti crime family we would say john's crew. vincent g gandy, we would refer to his crew or family as the westside. we would not naturally use those terms, they would not roll off our tongue often but for the book, for the sake of the book and the readers, yes, the terms are interchangeable. peter: what is a bravada -- borgata? >> we think of it as a low income spanish neighborhood, italian neighborhood. it morphed into when you are in the life, meeting our small, close-knit society, close-knit crew but it originally came from the term barrio that the spanish use. peter: who are the titans in the book? louis: the main titans, one is on the cover, carlos marcello who locks horns with bobby kennedy. when bobby kennedy becomes attorney general for his brother, bobby kennedy also has other archenemies considered titans in the book, one is j edgar hoover, another is jimmy hoffa, union leader industrial labor racketeer union leader. and then there were other titans, joe pataki is confronted with a rebellion in the lower ranks of his c

uh, is john gotti. and he had a regular following. he would show up in the wee hours. but, i mean, talk about the age of social media. he had maybe 50 people. you might have had, you know, several thousand today. >> when he walked in and he was visible to those who supported him and frankly, those who were in the courtroom for other reasons. did they say anything? could you hear what they were saying in reaction to being around him? >> i don't think there was anybody in that room that wasn't there for him. um, the judge said that. you know, i think that the judge was a little taken aback by the whole spectacle of this. the last time mr. mangione was in court, it was very small. i think i may have been the only courtroom artist there. it was tiny. this time this was an explosion. i mean, he didn't even take the time to say, to ask the lawyers to stand up and say their names and present themselves. it was just kind of, uh, you know, let's get through this. and then i almost felt as if he wanted to get out of there as swift as he could to, um, the defense attorney was com