Our Deep Dive Into Sammy the Bull Gravano's Ecstasy Case In Arizona
The Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano who was arrested in Arizona in February 2000 lacked all the savvy and sophistication one would expect of a longtime Mafia member who rose to become underboss of one of the Five Families. "I was stupid. You can say, ‘Sammy, you were a [expletive] retard.’” Some of Gravano’s actions, as revealed via Phoenix PD surveillance, were inexplicable—incomprehensible. Stupid might be a better word. It's actually the word Sammy himself used after he was arrested in his only jailhouse interview: “I was stupid. You can say, ‘Sammy, you were a [expletive] retard.” After copping to participation in 19 murders and helping put away John Gotti and 38 other members of organized crime, Sammy the Bull finished the five-year prison sentence he got via his plea agreement. The Federal Witness Protection Program relocated Gravano, under the alias Jimmy Moran , to Arizona in 1995. He left the program in 1997, the same year that his memoir Underboss: Sammy the Bul...