CLICK HERE for Part 2 of Mafia with Sir Trevor

Sir Trevor hosts two-part series on the mob.

to watch part Two 

Sir Trevor McDonald seeks to show viewers the "reality" and not the "mythology" of the Mob on the program.

Episode Two: After spending three months travelling across New York, Miami, Philadelphia and Southern California, Trevor hears detailed accounts of life in the Mafia as he meets major figures at home, at work and in bars, as well as on the streets where they operated for the documentary The Mafia with Trevor McDonald.

In the second episode, Trevor learns more about the lives the former mobsters have made for themselves since trying to leave the Mafia behind.






He continues his journey across America to meet prolific mob member John Alite at his home. John has recently been released from a ten year prison sentence after making a deal with the FBI and now lives just outside New York in his son’s apartment. John admits that on occasion his son accompanied him on hits, when he was as young as seven years old.


for 


John said: "I’m an alcoholic, with violence, not with alcohol. I was (addicted to violence). Now I handle it. I changed myself and I've proven over the years I've changed myself. And every day is a struggle I’ll lie to you if I say it, if you said something wrong to me on the street and I didn't know you, my first thought in my mind is, hurt that guy."

Instead of living under witness protection, Alite chooses to live out in the open, working in the construction business, accepting that one day someone could make him pay for his betrayal.

He said: "I have more than dozens of victims, over a hundred people. Killing, shooting, batting, stabbing, more than a hundred guys…When you go out and hurt as many people as I did, you are going to get hurt too."

In the 1980s and 1990s Alite worked for John Gotti Senior, who was the Godfather of the Gambino crime family, the most powerful and feared mobsters in America.

Trevor then meets Michael Di Leonardo, also known as Mikey Scars, a former high-ranking member of the Gambino crime family. Mikey has single-handedly inflicted more damage on the Mafia than anyone else in recent times, testifying against the men he worked with, to save himself from a life behind bars.

His evidence consigned 80 of them to prison and he knows only too well the mob, known to its members as Cosa Nostra, will never forgive him.

As a result, Mikey lives in permanent fear of attack and until recently was in the US Government’s witness protection programme. However, after months of persuasion, he meets Trevor at a hotel in Miami to speak publicly for the first time.

Trevor also meets one of the most successful mobsters in history, Michael Franzese, who posed as a major Hollywood film producer so he could launder large amounts of stolen money.

His brilliance for inventing sophisticated scams made the Mafia over a billion dollars, until he was indicted on 65 counts of tax evasion, racketeering and grand theft. He struck a deal with the FBI and served seven years in prison.

Today Michael is trying to build a new life with his family in California. He has denounced the Mafia, but his father – one of the most notorious Mafia figures of all time, who is, today, the oldest federal prisoner in the entire US, at the age of 93 – is still a major figure in the Columbo crime family in New York.

Trevor is keen to understand whether it is ever possible to be a member of the mob and have a happy, family life, and meets Michael’s wife, Cammy, to hear things from her perspective.

Cammy explains how she didn’t know he was in the Mafia until after they were married, and that in the past she had fears Michael may be killed

And rounding off his journey into the world of the Mafia, Trevor also learns more about how the Mafia survives today, by travelling to Miami to meet a low level street enforcer for the Bonnano crime family in Miami, whose identity is concealed.

He has been in and out of prison all his life and explains his view that the Mafia has changed, with members now more likely than in the past to break their code of silence and testify against each other..

Comments

  1. Pretty poor stuff, in my opinion. Even though I know a lot of it, there was nothing about the five families, the structures, the history, famous incidents and what made it happen. There was nothing about Junior Gotti, despite him playing a big role in Scars and Alite's time in the Mafia and their turning informant. It was only in the last 10 minutes that the viewer became aware that Alite wasn't running wild on as many innocents as he can find, that he's shooting and killing people who are part of the life and shot/killed him or his friends first. It was only in those last few minutes that Alite discussed the betrayals that led to him flipping. It was basically Trevor glorifying the violence by asking rats if they sleep at night and asking if the Mafia will come after them one day. This got so much mainstream exposure here in the UK, none of those Mobsters episodes or anything else will ever come close. And yet it contained no information about Cosa Nostra. All my friends and the people that have watched it know as little now as they did before, except that if they become a mafioso they will have to kill people and if they flip they'll live in fear. They wouldn't even be able to name two of the five families. Episode 1 was much better, though it still barely scratched the surface. Episode 2 was very poor I think, though Alite's final few minutes salvaged it slightly.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really liked hearing from guys we never hear from, like Mikey Scars and Ralph Natale. Trevor didn't always ask the follow-up, or they edited it out. Who was the one guy Natale spared, and why, for example. What happened to Mikey Scars' brother (and did he say his wife, too? I think the show could've used insight from law enforcement officials or even journalists to give perspective. But I think I was glad that we didn't have to hear about Maranzano and Massseria again. I think the best way to do the early history would be to focus an entire program around the formation of the mob in America and not shoehorn it into the beginning of a show like this. Make it the focus, get guys like Hortis, Dickie and Critchley ....

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah I want to know what happened there too, all he said in his testimony was that it was a Colombo problem and that Castellano said they couldn't support him if he wanted revenge. Mikey Scars was my favourite on the show. I agree I didn't want an in depth history, I prefer Carlo Gambino's reign to the present rather than the ancient stuff. But I feel there wasn't really a lot to it, the Mafia wasn't explained at all. It was just a bunch of ex-violent men saying they can't sleep at night, basically. Ed, on gangsters inc (I believe it's that) it said that is a limited to each family's size. Is that true? Is that Gambino/Genovese making sure they are unrivalled? And is it true the Bonannos under Massino grew to be almost as powerful as the Gambinos?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes I have heard there are size limits though families found their way around it. Bonannos had the "deads." The deads were names copied off tombstones - they'd increase their number of dead gangsters so they could inflate the family. I know the Bonannos did this to pump up the size. I also know the Canadian crew was limited in size, but no one knew what the hell was really going on in Canada. I am actually supposed to speak with a new source today - one of the oldest and longest-serving Mafioso I have ever spoken to and I can't wait. I will ask him and others about this and check Gangsters Inc.....Thanks for the feedback I appreciate it....

    ReplyDelete
  5. To answer your question about Mikey Scars brother. He was with the Colombo's and killed by Greg Scarpa Jr. How do you think he felt after it came out Greg Sr. was a rat all those years. He was told at the time to eat it. Being a true believer at that point, he ate it. He was by far the most interesting interviewed. The 1st episode was better I thought too.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The link to episode two is not working.

    ReplyDelete
  7. @edscarpo i was under the impression ron prevette was who natale let go

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ed, I'm tired of hearing the history of the mafia, I wanna hear from the guys themselves...i agree, I was fascinated with mikey scars. I wanted to hear more from him, I feel like the other guys aside from Natale were fringe guys, dileanardo is a treasure trove of info and would be a great story. Didn't you write that you spoke to him? Would love to read a story or book by that guy.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Agree!! The segment with Mikey was the best part. He's got huge balls too....driving around the old neighborhood like that!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Attn: Ed
    Fix episode 2--/it's not working.
    Thx

    ReplyDelete
  11. You'd be surprised who drives around that neighborhood!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Ed is there any way to get part one again?

    ReplyDelete
  13. It could.ve been Georgie Borgesi too when Ralphs Girl friend brushed up against him at a dinner gathering and Georgie told her u ever touch me again ill kill u and Ralph told him shut the f--- up. Then Georgie left went into hiding for a while necaise he thought he wad gonna get whacked. Uncle Joe later cleared the air for his nephew which im sure he regrets now. True Story. Philly

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thanks Ed. Sounds interesting...look forward to hearing what he has to say!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Someone knows the background music from the documentary???

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment