Elie Honig:

Before we start, just a heads-up. As you might expect, there’s some violence and adult language in here, so if you got kids around, you may want to throw on some headphones first. Thanks. From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, I’m Elie Honig, and this is Up Against the Mob.

Elie Honig:

There’s nothing about me that any mobster would ever fear. I’m not big, 5’9″ on a good day, slim build, no tattoos. Never had a real fistfight. Probably wouldn’t fare very well. I got a little bit of a mouth, but I’ve never berated somebody or threatened to kill them. Never held a gun. I’m not from the neighborhood, as the mobsters put it, unless you count the leafy suburbs of New Jersey as the neighborhood, which they don’t.

Elie Honig:

No, there’s nothing about me that would ever scare a real-life made guy in any of New York City’s five mob families. Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, Bonanno, Colombo, together known as La Cosa Nostra. Yet somehow, I ended up as chief of the organized crime unit for the most feared prosecutor’s office in the world, the federal prosecutor in Manhattan, the Southern District of New York. By the time I was done as a prosecutor, I had taken down over 100 mobsters, bosses, consiglieres, capos, soldiers, hit men, enforcers, hangers-on, and wannabes.

Eric Holder:

This is one of the largest single-day operations against the Mafia in the FBI’s history, both in terms of the number of defendants arrested and charged and the scope of the criminal activity that is alleged.

Elie Honig:

I charged, tried, and convicted gangsters for murder, racketeering, robbery, extortion, guns, drugs, loan sharking, fraud, you name it. I took untouchable powerhouses off the streets and sent them to prison for decades, sometimes for life. Sure, I made mistakes, took my lumps. That’s how it goes. But I won more than I lost. No, no mobster would ever walk by me on the street and be afraid or probably even notice me, but by the end, my boss, some guy named Preet Bharara, would tell a newspaper that I was organized crime’s worst nightmare. The Gotti family would call me, derisively, Hot-Shot Honig. I’ve been called worse.

Elie Honig:

My name is Elie Honig. I worked for 14 years as a federal and state prosecutor. This is the story of my career taking on the Mafia. In this season, I’ll take you inside the Mafia. There’s no fiction here. This isn’t the movies. This is real life, from the people who lived it.

Elie Honig:

This season, you’ll hear from prosecutors who took on mobsters in the courtroom and a famous lawyer who defended them. You’ll hear from FBI agents who went undercover, who hit the streets to infiltrate and take down the mob, and who took on the most dangerous, highest-stakes assignments. You’ll hear from a journalist who has studied the psychology of the Mafia and why we’re so fascinated with mobsters. You’ll hear from a guest who used to live the mob life himself before he turned against the Mafia and helped us bring down his entire crew. And you’ll hear from other mobsters in their own words on the streets when they had no idea they were being secretly recorded by the FBI or by their own fellow mobsters.

Elie Honig:

Welcome to the world I used to watch on movies and TV, but never thought I’d actually be part of. Welcome to the story of my career as a mob prosecutor. This is Up Against the Mob.

Elie Honig:

Here’s one thing that most movies and TV shows about crime get wrong. In the real world, very few cases are solved by CSI-style laboratory magic, blood spatters, DNA hits, hair fibers, psychological profiling, that kind of thing. That all makes for a nice, tidy half hour on TV, but it’s almost never how it works in real life. The true lifeblood of real criminal prosecution, especially against the mob, is the cooperating witness. You already know the nicknames they use in the mob for these guys. Rats, snitches, stoolies, if you want to go way back in time.

Audio:

Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.

Elie Honig:

There’s good reason why mobsters hate cooperators so much. Nobody can do as much damage as a cooperating witness can, because they live the life themselves. We used to say to juries, “Sure, we’d love to call nurses and schoolteachers as witnesses to take you inside the mob,” but they can’t. Only a real mobster can do that.

Elie Honig:

Over the years, I worked with dozens of cooperating witnesses. I got good at flipping guys. I convinced a lot of them to come over and join team America. Not all the time, but enough. There are few things as exciting to a mob prosecutor as flipping a new cooperating witness. For me, it was like getting a gift all nicely wrapped up or opening a new pack of baseball cards as a kid. What am I going to get? What’s inside here? And the best cooperators could open up a whole new world, take you inside, tell you who’s who, who’s got what rackets, maybe even who killed who. And if the cooperator was really well positioned and really had the goods, he could bring down an entire crew, an entire wing of a mob family, as you’ll see with today’s guest, Michael Visconti.

Elie Honig:

I first met Michael when he was right on the cusp, right at a key turning point in his life. He was on the brink of becoming a made guy, formally initiated, a full, untouchable member with the Genovese crime family. Now, let’s be clear. Despite the theatrical name and the aura of old-school Hollywood movie romance, there’s nothing at all glamorous about the Genovese organized crime family. In reality, they’re a group of essentially professional criminals. In some instances, killers.

Elie Honig:

Throughout its history, the Genovese family has made untold billions by stealing from good, hardworking citizens, and they’ve committed dozens upon dozens of murders, sometimes of innocent victims, sometimes of their enemies, sometimes of their own members. And the Genovese family is crafty, ruthless. They play by their own rules, and they’re not afraid to break everyone else’s. Perhaps the most infamous of the Genovese family’s members was Vincenzo Gigante, the Chin, the murderous boss who, in the 1990s, tried to beat federal charges by pretending to be incompetent and wandering around Manhattan in his pajamas.

Elie Honig:

So, Michael Visconti. Well, he was a rising superstar, a first-round pick if they held a Mafia draft, an elite prospect. He had it all. He could handle himself on the streets, and he knew how to make money, both on the legit side and the not-so-legit. His mob future was bright. But for the first time in his career, Michael had run into trouble with the law. It was make-or-break time for Michael Visconti: fight the case and take the likely prison sentence, or leave the Genovese family, join team fed, and try to save himself. Years after he made that life-changing decision, Michael and I sat down to talk about it like we never have before.

Elie Honig:

Do you remember where, physically where you and I first met with an FBI agent?

Michael Visconti:

Yeah. We met in a diner in New Jersey, and I think we ate. I don’t remember what we ate, but I got to meet you for the first time. Yeah.

Elie Honig:

Exactly. It was Tops Diner in Newark, New Jersey. I always remember when you and John [Loria 00:07:53], the FBI agent, walked in, and the server knew exactly what was going on and tucked us away a little bit in the back.

Michael Visconti:

Yeah. I was on every newspaper a couple months prior to that, so I think they knew exactly who I was.

Elie Honig:

Visconti had been charged with extortion in federal court in New Jersey, and he was looking at serious jail time for the first time in his life. He had a big decision to make: cooperate against his fellow Genovese family mobsters, or fight the case and risk major prison time.

Michael Visconti:

That was a very, very, very tough situation for me. I do remember some of the topics that we talked about. Obviously, topic A was Angelo Prisco and my relationship with him.

Elie Honig:

This was the meeting where I first laid out for Visconti the nuts and bolts. If he wanted to cooperate, he’d have to tell me everything he knew about everybody he ever dealt with in the mob. And when I left the diner that day, I called up my supervisor and said, “We got a monster case right here. We’re going to take down an entire wing of the Genovese family.”

Elie Honig:

So, you mentioned Angelo Prisco. Tell us who Angelo Prisco was.

Michael Visconti:

Angelo, he was my captain. On a personal level, he was like a family member to me, actually. That’s what he was. He was a very, very respected person in the Genovese crime family.

Elie Honig:

During our investigation, before we arrested anybody and before I ever sat down in that diner with Visconti, the FBI managed to flip an informant inside Prisco’s crew. Unknown to the other guys in the crew, Prisco, Visconti, and all the rest, that informant wore a secret recording device for months, during which he captured hours’ worth of candid, unguarded conversations about crimes and mob life. We ended up playing a bunch of these tapes later for trial juries, which we’ll discuss in a bit. Fortunately, I was able to call up an old friend at the SDNY who sent me copies of some of the best of those recordings for this podcast. Now, here’s one of those recordings that our informant made where Angelo Prisco talks about his personal view of mob life. Remember, Prisco had no idea that the person he was talking to was secretly wearing a wire for the FBI.

Informant:

And they expect loyalty.

Angelo Prisco:

[crosstalk 00:10:18] you being the boss, this life sucks. It’s like a catch-22. If you’re the boss, you could go to jail. This life ain’t cracked up. It ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.

Elie Honig:

This was a common complaint that I’d hear from mobsters. The power is nice, but overall, as Angelo Prisco says here, the life is full of peril.

Michael Visconti:

His mentor was Mario Gigante. He was very strong guy. He ran Purple Gang along with Danny Leo in Harlem, and they came up through the ranks together. The Genovese crime family had a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Elie Honig:

What do you mean by that?

Michael Visconti:

I mean by the fact that John Gotti would’ve [inaudible 00:11:11] suit on, smacking himself in the head, telling everybody he’s the boss. Our guys had a mothball holes in their sweaters, but they had $50 million in cash in their apartment.

Elie Honig:

Now, the Genovese and the Gambinos are two of the five New York City mob families. They’ve got their similarities. They’re both about the same size, around 150 made guys plus a few hundred more associates looking to get in, and they’re involved in some of the same rackets. But there also are important stylistic differences. Angelo Prisco shared his feelings toward the rival Gambino family with our informant.

Angelo Prisco:

I hate those guys. I don’t love the Gambinos. Soon as I hear them, my asshole goes like this. Who the fuck they are? They think they’re the number one in the world. Everybody else is shit on their shoe.

Elie Honig:

The Gambinos tend to be flashy, flamboyant, arrogant. Think of John Gotti parading around for the paparazzi and making the cover of the New York City tabloids.

Audio:

It was as if the reputed mob boss wanted to savor as much freedom as possible, strolling with his entourage across a park toward the courthouse.

Audio:

At one time, Gotti was such a national celebrity that, when he went to trial for multiple murders, someone played the theme from The Godfather while his supporters cheered.

Elie Honig:

But the Genovese family was different. We prosecutors in the FBI would jokingly refer to the Genovese family as the Ivy League of the Mafia, meaning they were smart, they weren’t flashy, they were secretive, kept a low profile, they made a lot of money, and they were tough to prosecute.

Michael Visconti:

That’s the difference between our crew and theirs. They had power committees, they had panels of leaders, and you never knew really, even us as soldiers and associates, didn’t even really know exactly who was in control, even if you were part of the faction. Angelo Prisco was a very, very respected guy, tough guy, and a cold-blooded murderer. He was a murderer.

Elie Honig:

You said that Angelo was your captain. What does that mean in terms of the ranks?

Michael Visconti:

Well, he was in charge of an area for them, starting in the Bronx and then northern New Jersey. They talk about different people in New Jersey who had power. A lot of power always sat in Jersey. I’m talking about from not the beginning, but the ’50s. A lot of the power players were in Jersey, and that’s where they were.

Elie Honig:

Focusing on Prisco, you talked about he was an old-school guy, a powerful guy in the Genovese family. Fair to say you were really his right hand. You were the guy he went to most within the crew. Is that fair to say?

Michael Visconti:

Yes. Yes.

Elie Honig:

How many guys would you say were the core Angelo Prisco, New Jersey-based crew?

Michael Visconti:

Probably 15 or so guys that were really his core guys. He had some people in Brooklyn and in the Bronx. Yeah, at least 15 strong guys.

Elie Honig:

And you mentioned that Angelo had to stay in New Jersey at this point. Why was that?

Michael Visconti:

Because Angelo took a rap in late ’90s and pled out to arson and got sentenced to 12 years and was released by the parole board early.

Elie Honig:

Parole is a tricky thing for a mobster like Prisco. It means he’s not in jail, but he’s still under court supervision, and he has to obey certain rules. And if he messes up, he can get thrown right back in. One of Prisco’s parole conditions was that he could not leave the physical boundaries of New Jersey. Prisco talked to our informant about his frustration at being limited while on parole.

Angelo Prisco:

I got three years parole again. They put you back if they want. I don’t know how they work with the state. Or you got to go in and you got to do the time you owe them. I don’t know how it works. [inaudible 00:15:22] fucking close to less than a year. I don’t want to fuck up.

Informant:

That’s why you got guys around you to take care of things.

Angelo Prisco:

But I’m not doing that. It’s not the same as if I’m there.

Elie Honig:

Even while he was on parole, Prisco still kept up his criminal rackets as best he could. In one memorable case, he got involved in a shakedown of the famous action movie star Steven Seagal.

Michael Visconti:

I call these situations the perfect storm. We got reached out to by Bob DeBrino, who was in the movie business and ex-police officer, and cousin of Angelo Prisco’s. He was in L.A. The Gambinos were shaking down Steven Seagal for $250,000 a movie.

Elie Honig:

Steven Seagal, the actor, karate guy with the hair.

Michael Visconti:

Karate guy. Yeah. Got a ponytail. Him.

Elie Honig:

And the Gambino family is shaking Steven Seagal down.

Michael Visconti:

To put into civilian terminology, they were asking for money on movies that he made. That was happening.

Elie Honig:

In one recording made by the informant, we got lucky. We hit a prosecutor’s jackpot. We caught Prisco on tape talking bluntly about the shakedown of Steven Seagal.

Angelo Prisco:

They let me go, and then they’re going to put me back because of that Steven Seagal. And when it happened, I told them, “Listen, you’re pushing this guy to the wall. He’s a fucking actor. He’s a Jewish actor.”

Informant:

He’s Jewish?

Angelo Prisco:

Yeah.

Informant:

I didn’t know that. Seagal. I didn’t even think about that.

Angelo Prisco:

He’s a Jewish actor.

Informant:

Son of a bitch.

Angelo Prisco:

He’s not a fucking tough guy. They sent word back to me, “We’ll do whatever we want with him. [inaudible 00:17:11] piece of cheese, and we’ll cut him up anyway.” It’s okay. He came to see me. I said, “Steven, I can’t help you.” Then when I come out, [inaudible 00:17:19]. He ratted. Now, once he ratted, all their lawyers came. Old guy named Larry Bronson. You heard of him, right? He’s a Jersey lawyer.

Informant:

[inaudible 00:17:28].

Angelo Prisco:

Yeah. He came to see me. I have an attorney. I thought it was my attorney, but I don’t know. I said, “Yeah, Larry, what’s up?” He said, “You know who sent me, didn’t you?” I said, “Who?” He said, “Well, I can’t tell you.” “You can’t tell me?” I grabbed him by his throat, and I twisted his tie. He was turning purple. I said, “You can’t tell me, you motherfucker?” I got insulted. “You want to come and talk to me [inaudible 00:17:55].” And I twisted his fucking tie. He said, “Let go of me.” I said, “What did you want?” “Oh, maybe you can talk to Steven. He’s a rat.” I said, “Well, I sent the message that you’re pushing this guy to the wall. I was told to mind my fucking business. You know what? Get the fuck out of here and tell him to go fuck himself. I’m minding my business.”

Elie Honig:

Here, we have a real mobster, Angelo Prisco, in his own his words, describing to his driver, who of course Prisco had no idea was wearing a wire, blow by blow how he shook down Steven Seagal and even how he choked Seagal’s lawyer to drive the message home. Angelo gets out, he’s got this crew. Angelo cannot physically leave New Jersey.

Michael Visconti:

Correct.

Elie Honig:

Tell us, where was the main regular meeting place with this crew?

Michael Visconti:

Glen Rock. We all became bowlers. We joined the bowling league. That was really good. We used to bowl. I don’t know what night of the week it was. It was very close shot for guys to come from New York to the bowling alley. As you know, a lot of that audio that you guys taped wasn’t too clear at the bowling alley.

Elie Honig:

I’ll complain about this all day, but we had a guy wearing a wire in your bowling alley, and it was just conversation, conversation, pins explode. Conversation, conversation, pins explode. Did you do that on purpose? Did you guys pick a bowling alley just in case?

Michael Visconti:

No, he wasn’t that smart, Angelo, I don’t think. He liked to bowl. What was funny about this is I’m a very competitive guy, and I ended up bowling a 298 or 299 or something. I actually got very good at this sport. It was funny, because they all sucked. I got a lot of stories for that one, too. One time, we were bowling against a team, and Angelo had some underlying problems medically. He was a diabetic, and he didn’t take care of himself. He ate the wrong stuff, he was overweight. He would bowl. He was a left-handed bowler. Not that it means anything. But he always sat on a chair backwards. He always leaned his torso and elbows on the back of the chair. He was doing that, and we were bowling against another team. The guy was trying to get around him and told Angelo, “Hey, bro, sit right or move.”

Elie Honig:

Oh, boy.

Michael Visconti:

We all reacted pretty quickly, and the guy shit his pants. They didn’t know. They had no idea. Obviously, they knew afterwards. They probably can’t believe they escaped that one. It was funny stories like that.

Michael Visconti:

A lot of people that worked at the bowling alley knew because of the people that would come there. We had everybody coming there, from Pepe LaScala, Robert Milano, Fat Charlie Salzano. Everybody came there. You know what I mean? They all knew. Even Mike the Nose, Vinny Gorgeous, they were all there.

Elie Honig:

These are powerful guys. Vinny Gorgeous was a boss. They would drive into Jersey.

Michael Visconti:

Yeah, to see me. I was this conduit, because when we were taking care of the San Gennaro Feast, I was the bagman for the Genovese crime family. I was helping lay out the garbage with Vinny and even Mike the Nose. Mike’s the acting boss now. But these are the guys that we were with every day. You know who was on the bowling team?

Elie Honig:

Give me the lineup here.

Michael Visconti:

Okay. It was me and Ang, Rocky, Eddie Cobb.

Elie Honig:

It reads like our indictment.

Michael Visconti:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Elie Honig:

We ended up indicting the entire bowling team and more. Now, Rocky was a key figure. His real name was John Melicharek, but everyone called him Rocky. He was short and scrappy. Rocky and Visconti were Prisco’s right and left hand, his top two guys. They worked together a lot, but they also had a bit of a rivalry.

Michael Visconti:

Yeah. That was our bowling team. We were the best-dressed bowlers.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. It doesn’t surprise me. Were you good in the standings? Did you win your matches?

Michael Visconti:

Yeah, we won some stuff. We did pretty good. You know what I mean? We did good.

Elie Honig:

Listen, if you’re rolling high 200s, that’s a good start.

Michael Visconti:

They knew. Obviously, I always made a lot of money, so I don’t want to use anybody’s equipment. The first night, a guy said, “Well, you can’t just buy a ball. You have to have a drill.” I said, “How much is a ball?” He said, “130. And then to drill, it’s 20. I think I can get $400.” I said, “Can you do it right now?” And the guy was like, “Yeah, I can do that right now.”

Elie Honig:

“Sure. Can do.”

Michael Visconti:

They took care of us over there, because we were just different, I guess, than the average bowlers.

Elie Honig:

When he was on the streets, Visconti was the Genovese family’s dream. He definitely was tough, and most importantly, he was a money-maker. Visconti even came from a good family background, and he had an innate understanding of business.

Michael Visconti:

I don’t know. I was different. I was different.

Elie Honig:

How did this happen, though? When you’re talking about your family now, you’re talking about your actual family. Your father, your brothers.

Michael Visconti:

Yes.

Elie Honig:

None of them had anything to do with the mob. And a lot of guys, by the way, Michael, who I ended up dealing with as cooperators, their father was a made guy, their uncle was a made guy, their brother. You’re the only one in your family who had anything to do with these mob guys. How did that happen in your life?

Michael Visconti:

I had an attraction to that, I guess. I don’t know what it was. I have a lot of things, too, in own life that I dealt with. Looking at me physically, speaking to me, you may make your own assumptions on who I am and what I am, whether it’s a good vocabulary, pretty big guy, well built, whatever it is. But I, as a kid, didn’t see myself like that. Even though I was an outstanding athlete, I struggled in school and didn’t find out until later on I had dyslexia. Went through that, got through it, and trained my eyes and my brain how to pick things up and do things differently than someone else. But through those times, my self esteem wasn’t what it appeared to be. I was an overachiever, a prover, and I wasn’t one to be challenged. Going through that, if I felt challenged, my defense was to react physically.

Elie Honig:

Who was your first conduit into this world?

Michael Visconti:

Where I live, the Colombo family had a compound, and that’s where Joe Sr. died after he was shot in the head in Columbus. But I knew his kids as well.

Elie Honig:

Where was this, just geographically?

Michael Visconti:

That’s Washingtonville.

Elie Honig:

North of New York City.

Michael Visconti:

Correct. North of New York City. Colombos had a farm, and Joe Sr. raised his five kids there.

Elie Honig:

You mean the Colombos of the Colombo family had an actual farm?

Michael Visconti:

It wasn’t a working farm.

Elie Honig:

Okay.

Michael Visconti:

I think they raced Cadillacs. They were there. The youngest son was the closest to me in age. He’s older than me. And then you had Joe Jr., Anthony. I don’t know. They have a daughter, too. For some reason, Joey always had a bit of a problem with me. I don’t know what it was, whether he was jealous of me that I was a good business guy, maybe a girl liked me that liked him. I don’t know. But he postured to me a few times, and I went into the attack mode, because I didn’t give a shit who you were, and shocked him. And then I had a friend of mine that I grew up with that was friends with Angelo, and Angelo always wanted to meet me. I didn’t want to really know anybody.

Elie Honig:

Angelo Prisco?

Michael Visconti:

Correct. Finally, I went down there to put it on record that I threatened to beat the shit out of Joey Colombo Jr. Angelo said, “Did you put hands on him?” I said, “No. No, I verbally threatened him. I told him if he comes around me again, I will completely crack his skull open.” Angelo said, “Come meet me for dinner.” From that day on, I was with that guy every single day until we were indicted.

Elie Honig:

Just to be clear, you basically threatened to hurt the son of a very powerful member of the Colombo family. You knew enough that you had to go get some protection, and so you went and laid this out in front of Angelo. That’s how you ended up around or on record with Angelo Prisco.

Michael Visconti:

Yes.

Elie Honig:

What was the relationship like between you and Angelo? He was, I’m guessing, 20 years older than you, 15, 20 years older than you. How did you look at him at that time?

Michael Visconti:

He was a very funny guy, very charismatic, obviously a tough man. It happens in life. You really hit it off with somebody to the point where, if Angelo introduced me to somebody that wasn’t in the family, he would say, “This is my son.” He always introduced me as his kid or his boy or his guy, but it was always, “My son. You’re the son I never had.” All that sort of stuff.

Elie Honig:

At the time, when you were on the streets with Angelo, were you all in? Did you love it? Did you love the lifestyle, or did you find it to be exhausting and stressful? What was your state of mind?

Michael Visconti:

Both, Elie. Both. Yes, yes. I loved it. I loved all of it. I loved meeting with the guys, laughing, not waiting in line, parking on sidewalks, all that shit. If you look at the old tapes of Donnie Brasco and Joe Pistone, he’ll tell you he even fell into it. That’s a trained FBI agent. He fell into the same… It’s hard not to. It’s really hard not to. Did it become monotonous and time-wasting? Yes, because I wasn’t a time-waster. I wasn’t a hanger-outer. I liked to get it done and be successful. There’s only a very small handful that are successful.

Elie Honig:

Very true. A lot of people, I think, have this notion of the Gottis or even the Angelo Priscos, but as you know, Michael, there’s dozens of wannabes and hangers-on and guys scrapping for the smallest scores out there.

Michael Visconti:

Oh, yeah. Just ridiculous. Ridiculous.

Elie Honig:

You had a couple of them in your crew.

Michael Visconti:

Yeah, I did. I had unsuccessful people around me every day. Every day.

Elie Honig:

What types of things would you do? What types of crimes were you involved in with Angelo and the crew?

Michael Visconti:

Extortion, home invasions. Wherever there was something that could be good, it got ran by us or talked about or people did, other than drug dealing.

Elie Honig:

Right. Why not?

Michael Visconti:

Angelo was a drug dealer. So was Danny Leo. So was Vinny Gorgeous. Matter of fact, Vinny Gorgeous was partners with Angelo at one point. But came time in about ’77 when Mario Gigante told them to back off, because, “Books are opening up. You’re going to get straightened out,” and he did.

Elie Honig:

What you’re talking about here is the mob “rule” against dealing in drugs, right?

Michael Visconti:

Correct.

Elie Honig:

But of course, as you’re telling us, even the most powerful guys break that rule.

Michael Visconti:

Listen, two of the cardinal rules is you don’t deal drugs, you don’t screw around with anybody’s girl or wife. I can tell you this. I know for a fact that Angelo was guilty of both. He was that jerk. You just don’t do that. What it does and why the rule was set, and it was set back probably by Charlie Luciano. It just causes too much animosity and problems.

Michael Visconti:

And let me tell you something. Our forefathers were drug dealers. Charlie Luciano was a pimp. The drug of the time was alcohol. Of course, he did that. Vito Genovese was one of the biggest heroin dealers in the world. You know what I mean? This is what he did. It’s crazy, but I think the seriousness came down when the laws changed with Reagan and our mayor in New York. What was his name? Koch. Koch really sharpened the laws up. And then he had Giuliani in there. And it really became serious with the amount of time that can be given to somebody for a drug offense. Instead of having somebody flip, they didn’t want you to do it.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. It was bad business. And I will tell you, Michael, I had other cases against other families where we would charge a guy with eight crimes, and the eighth most significant crime was dealing in drugs, low quantity, and they would not want to plea to that. They’d be willing to plea to the higher stuff, but not the drug crime, because they didn’t want to admit it. But as you say, it’s total hypocrisy.

Michael Visconti:

It is hypocrisy.

Elie Honig:

Let me ask you. You mentioned extortion. How does that work, basically? What kind of people was the Genovese family involved in shaking down?

Michael Visconti:

Oh my God. Could be anything. If there was construction, it was construction. If it was garbage, it was garbage. Obviously, the lighting thing, the lighting contract [inaudible 00:31:54] was all control.

Elie Honig:

That’s the first thing that you got arrested for, shaking down a lighting contractor.

Michael Visconti:

Correct.

Elie Honig:

The real way guys get shaken down by the mob is not necessarily somebody walking into the corner store saying, “I want a bag of cash, or I’ll break your knees.” You phrase it as a business proposition, where we’re going to be partners.

Michael Visconti:

Exactly. That’s exactly right. Basically, that’s it. I’ll call it paying a toll. If you’re going to come across our road, you’re going to pay.

Elie Honig:

It’s a mob tax.

Michael Visconti:

Yes. It’s a tax.

Elie Honig:

And Michael, you mentioned home invasions. Obviously, you guys weren’t sending people to break into random homes. Who was the crew targeting for those kinds of home invasions?

Michael Visconti:

People that had cash. Dirty people, drug dealers, people that were in cash businesses and such.

Elie Honig:

Here’s a secret recording that our informant made of Michael Visconti back when Visconti was still on the streets, before he got arrested and decided to flip, talking about one of those robberies.

Michael Visconti:

He’s always got 30, 40 pounds there. He’s got 50 to 100,000 cash. He’s got bottles and bottles and bottles of pills.

Informant:

Just going for the cash, obviously.

Michael Visconti:

[inaudible 00:33:11].

Elie Honig:

Michael, as you’ve alluded to and talked about, you’re a big, strong guy. Were there times when you assaulted people, committed violence, for Angelo, for the crew?

Michael Visconti:

Yes.

Elie Honig:

Bunch of times? Once or twice?

Michael Visconti:

No. For Rocky, just out of fun.

Elie Honig:

Rocky was another guy in the crew, right?

Michael Visconti:

Yeah, Rocky was a guy. He was a very respected guy. He had Napoleon syndrome, Rocky. Rocky had joker pokers and little businesses like that, and he had a guy that owed him money that was with the Colombos. We were doing business in Brooklyn with the Russians one day, and he said, “Man, a guy owes me 20 grand,” whatever it was. I said, “Who’s he with?” He said, “He’s with the Colombos.” I said, “Really? He’s not going to pay you?” I didn’t know that he had paid 140 or 150 already. It wasn’t like he owed him 20. He had already paid a lot of money.

Elie Honig:

Which makes a difference in the mob world. Yeah.

Michael Visconti:

It makes a huge difference. Huge difference. He’s telling me that the Colombos said it’s done. Anthony Colombo or somebody said it’s over. Done. Leave them alone. But he didn’t tell me the other part that he had already paid 130 or 140,000. I said, “Where is he?” He said, “He’s got a furniture store right around the corner.” I said, “Well, go over there.” He came out, and he started with the Colombo shit. I openhandedly knocked him into a bank window and knocked him down, but when I did it, I swung wide with my open hand, and I hit Rocky’s nose and broke it. There was blood all over the sidewalk. I hit Rocky and hit him. That was a funny story. But yeah, stuff like that, absolutely. I had no problem doing that.

Elie Honig:

You had no problem, like you said, with an assault, an act of violence.

Michael Visconti:

No.

Elie Honig:

Before Visconti flipped, when he was still out on the streets, our informant caught him on tape talking about his own enforcement methods.

Michael Visconti:

[inaudible 00:35:17]. “Stay the fuck away from these fuckers. This is your last warning. Come back, and you’re never going to see your family again. I’ll kill you.” He doesn’t do it. Now, I got to go back and beat him up. Normally, I’d go in there and flip the desk over. You know what I mean? I swear to God.

Elie Honig:

Angelo Prisco, we prosecutors ended up trying convicting Angelo for a murder that happened many years before you were ever involved. It was a 1992 murder that you were not involved in. But Angelo, we proved to a jury, was a killer, was capable of giving an order to murder. If Angelo had asked you to, had instructed you to kill somebody, would you have done it?

Michael Visconti:

Yes.

Elie Honig:

You would’ve?

Michael Visconti:

Yep.

Elie Honig:

No hesitation?

Michael Visconti:

No.

Elie Honig:

Why? Looking back, why?

Michael Visconti:

Now, I can look back and say, “Why?” In that timeframe, I was in a different state of mind. Listen, if you’re raised with sheep, you’re a sheep. If you’re raised with bulls, you’re a bull. When you start hanging around with jerk-offs, you start losing all senses. Your morals are the first thing that goes, and it’s hard to hold onto that. I said it at sentencing. “I’m the same physical human being. I’m the same physical person, Your Honor,” I said, “but I’ve found my morals that I lost.” And it’s the truth. If somebody came up to me today and asked me to punch somebody in the face, I’d laugh at them. If it came to my children being hurt, I’d act like any other father.

Elie Honig:

Of course.

Michael Visconti:

But in that state of mind, the question that you asked me then, yes, I would’ve.

Elie Honig:

I think that’s a really honest answer. Yeah.

Michael Visconti:

Yes. And it’s multiple reasons, Elie. Multiple reasons. You got to understand something. There’s a good chance you could get killed if you say no.

Elie Honig:

Right. According to mob protocols, right?

Michael Visconti:

100%.

Elie Honig:

If an Angelo Prisco says to you, “I need you to do a piece of work,” as they say, that’s not optional, right?

Michael Visconti:

It’s not optional. I’ll tell you why. Angelo always used the terminology, “If you step on a cockroach, are you going to tell your friends about that? The answer’s no. It’s twofold. Are you going to tell somebody there’s a cockroach in your house? No. And is it a big deal to tell somebody you killed a cockroach? No, so you’re not going to tell them.”

Elie Honig:

At one point, our informant had to drive Prisco a couple hours from North Jersey down to Atlantic City. During that long car ride, Prisco opened up about mob life, including his theory on how to approach a murder. Prisco had no idea he was being recorded.

Angelo Prisco:

[inaudible 00:37:58]. If somebody’s got to go, they become a cockroach. What do you do with a cockroach? You kill the cockroach, you step on the cockroach, you go about your business. You’re not going to call people up and say, “Hey, I stepped on a cockroach last night.” That’s the way it goes. I didn’t make it that way, but that’s the way it is.

Elie Honig:

That’s how he looked at it?

Michael Visconti:

Exactly. If they’re asking me and I say no and it gets done, I know about it, just like the other person knows about it.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. And you’re a risk now.

Michael Visconti:

Now, I’m going to get killed. That’s part of my answer why yes.

Elie Honig:

This brings us almost to the point where we were talking about where you and I first met with the diner.

Elie Honig:

A little background here. Visconti was first charged in the federal district of New Jersey, along with Angelo Prisco and one other person, for one count of extortion. That’s when Visconti first decided he might be interested in cooperating.

Elie Honig:

What made you decide to cooperate? It’s such an important and difficult decision that any person may have to make.

Michael Visconti:

Okay. When I was picked up, I told Christine that morning-

Elie Honig:

Your wife.

Michael Visconti:

My wife. “I’ll do my best, but I’m probably going to at least do five years.” And I’m okay. I was okay at that time period for that to happen. When they picked us up, there was three people picked up in New Jersey. The three of us that got picked up was Angelo Prisco, John Capelli, and myself. The feds took us into the private rooms, and then put us into a holding pen, which normally does not happen. We spent about 35 to 40 minutes together before they realized that we needed to be separated. In that 35 minutes, Angelo of course gave me the writeup. “We’re going to file. Nobody pleads out, nobody fucking pleads out. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah.” You’re going in with that mindset that we’re going to go to trial, and let’s see how we can do. And of course, everyone knows that, at the 11th hour, usually, you cut a deal. Three years, and you do whatever. I don’t know.

Michael Visconti:

I’m in day three or day four, and they have him in one facility, me in another. John Capelli makes bail. I either pick up a paper or call home, and they tell me that Angelo cut a deal. I said, “Already? No way.” “Yeah, he cut a five-year deal.” I said, “That fucking fat, old fuck. How could he do that to me? I just had a child.” Now, he more or less cut a fucking deal, but he wasn’t in any of the places. I’m fucked. I have a lot more at stake than he does. God only knows what else they have. I’m getting more and more mad as the day goes on, the night goes on, the next day comes, and I’m really fucking pissed off. Besides that, I have a newborn child home. Everything’s a mess. It all happened very quickly. New York State seized my accounts on a gambling charge. I had no access to money, and the cash that I had, Christine couldn’t get. It was a mess. I called her up, and I said, “Call the number and tell them I want to talk to them.”

Elie Honig:

You tried first to cooperate with federal prosecutors in New Jersey. Tell us how that went.

Michael Visconti:

It was a shit show.

Elie Honig:

Visconti had information about a murder that had happened years before in New York in 1992. Visconti had nothing to do with it. It was well before his mob days. But he’d picked up some internal mob chatter about Prisco’s involvement in that hit, and Visconti had information on plenty of other crimes that he had personally committed with and for Prisco and others. The problem was the New Jersey prosecutor on his case just wasn’t interested in cooperation. He mostly wanted to wrap up the case and call it a day. But the FBI agent on the case was not satisfied with that, so the agent picked up the phone, and he called me at the SDNY.

Michael Visconti:

He got the Rolls Royce. Southern District is the New York Yankees. Come on. It is. It’s not Brooklyn. It’s the Southern District. You go there, you better have a lot of ammunition and a lot of money to finish it. It’s not like that in New Jersey. The people that were involved in New Jersey, even going into this, I knew what I was up against. Either I would win, or I would cut a sweet deal, maximum being five years, probably something less. I never had convictions before, so I would’ve been out. But I don’t know, when Angelo went in, what was going to happen.

Michael Visconti:

They didn’t have their ducks aligned or the ammunition to fight this case the right way. In hindsight, it was the grace of God that you picked the case up because of the efforts of the agent trying to really pursue this. And thank God that the homicide was in New York. There was a lot of key components that made this happen. During one of the briefings, I saw the agent’s eyes lit up when I talked about the body being moved in there. He looked at his partner, and we kept going. And it came back a year later, those questions.

Elie Honig:

You had a little bit of a difficult calculus, just straight-up math to do, which is you were only charged in Jersey with the one crime, the extortion, which you’re looking at maybe five years, like you said. And I’m sure that I explained to you that, if you’re going to cooperate with us, you’re going to have to own up to all this other stuff, more serious crimes. But if you do it right, you get a letter from us, a sentencing letter from us. Tell me about that calculation in your head. How did you work through that?

Michael Visconti:

It was a very, very, very scary situation. It was scary. I saw nothing developing in Jersey other than looking at pictures and identifying people. There was nothing, nothing, nothing. And I saw what road I was going down. When I got the call from the agent to meet with you, I asked who you were, he told me, and then I started doing the math. What did you need to talk to me about? I knew at that point. But really, what saved the day, you told me, “Look, it’s this, this, and this. I know how they are there. I have respect for them, they are the federal government, but you’re going down a road with a dead end. I’m not promising you anything, but here’s where we are.” I was going through a lot of emotions, obviously, because I loved some of the people that I was involved with, but I had to make a choice, and I had to make it quickly. It was torturous. It was really, really tortuous. It’s almost hard to put into words the emotions and feelings that I went through, along with my family. It was tough.

Michael Visconti:

When you make a decision like that in life, I don’t care what anybody says from the witness side. It’s a scary, scary thing, but you have to commit to come clean, because if you don’t, you and I both know what happens. These witnesses may not know that, but me sitting in that room, that seven-inch wall, quiet room, I called it the safe, that we would go into, and we would talk. I don’t know who else you’re talking to. And for those that are listening, believe me, you’re not the only one they’re talking to. Either come clean, or go home, go to jail. As a person sitting there, a part of them don’t believe it. Either you’re going to do it, or you’re not. It’s almost like either you’re going to jump in a pool or you’re not going to jump. That’s it.

Elie Honig:

Right. You don’t want to get caught halfway.

Michael Visconti:

No. It’s a waste of time.

Elie Honig:

One of the things I explained to you and other cooperators is exactly what you said. If we’re going to play games here, don’t bother, because we’re going to know a lot more other things.

Elie Honig:

Eventually, we at the Southern District of New York used Visconti’s information to do a major indictment. We took down Angelo Prisco, Rocky, and the whole crew.

Elie Honig:

The day we went out and made these arrests and brought these guys in, how did you feel about that, that day, knowing that guys who you used to be friends with, spend your days with, your nights with, were now arrested, indicted in the SDNY, in large part because of your information?

Michael Visconti:

How do I feel? I felt like shit in the beginning, because I did. I just did. If they’re listening or not listening, the fear of me talking made them plead out, okay? You and I both know that. But when it came to Angelo Prisco and what I felt he did to me, I don’t regret any of that bullshit, because I’m not going to ever let anybody take advantage of me or my family. This is eat or be eaten, and they got eaten. I didn’t.

Elie Honig:

You testified at two different trials where I was the lead prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. The first was a minor player, Angelo Nicosia.

Michael Visconti:

You know I wanted to kill him, right?

Elie Honig:

No. What do you mean? Literally?

Michael Visconti:

Literally.

Elie Honig:

Do tell.

Michael Visconti:

Okay. He’s a punk, zip. And the terminology zip is a guinea from Italy. He was an asshole. It’s pretty ironic. I’ll get into it after this. But he was a crybaby jerk that knew Nicky from the docks and always had a problem. Always, “Yeah, this guy owes me money.” Always wanted to be a tough guy. We were out one afternoon for something with Rocky, and I said something to him, and he literally almost got in my face.

Elie Honig:

Oh, yes. I do remember this.

Michael Visconti:

I took a fork, and I was going to put it in his neck. And Rocky got between us, and I told Rocky that day, told him, I said, “I’m going to kill him, so just understand he’s going to die.” That’s how I-

Elie Honig:

You did tell us this. That’s right.

Michael Visconti:

Yes. He was going to die. No doubt about it. I was going to fucking kill him. Everybody got busted. Angelo told me to back off, I told Angelo no, and he goes, “Do what you got to do.” That was it. Rocky tried to be the mediator in the situation, because he was earning money off Angelo, collecting these little debts, little [inaudible 00:49:39] like that, and that was the reason why he wanted to save him.

Michael Visconti:

But moving forward, the little bit of shit that I had on this zip, I cherished that day that I stood on the stand, because it was better than… I couldn’t physically harm him, okay? By the way, people that are listening, it was him, his wife, and his mother at the trial, okay? Prisco’s was standing-room-only.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. Big difference in the trials.

Michael Visconti:

Big difference in the trials.

Elie Honig:

Angelo Nicosia was a fairly low-level player in Prisco’s crew. We’d charge him with extorting a New Jersey contractor for about $50,000. At one point, Nicosia and others in the crew smashed a half-full glass coffee pot over the head of the contractor’s business partner. Another time, they threatened to cut off the contractor’s fingers. Nicosia wouldn’t take a plea, so we took him to trial. Visconti testified at that trial about the extortion, and the jury came back with a guilty verdict. The judge sent Nicosia away for just under four years, but for Visconti, that trial was just a warm-up. The main event was the trial of Angelo Prisco.

Elie Honig:

The main event was the Angelo Prisco trial, and that, I’m sure, was a very different experience for you. What was it like to walk into a packed courtroom, get into the witness box, take that oath, and point out Angelo? We always do this physically. We would say, “Do you recognize Angelo Prisco here in the courtroom?” And you have to say, “He’s right there in the whatever-colored suit.” What was that like for you?

Michael Visconti:

It was terrible. It was terrible, because I did have love for Angelo and his family. It was truly a difficult, difficult time. When I say the perfect storm, I looked to you for support when I looked out into the crowd, and we did have a good judge. I didn’t do anything staged. I looked into the eyes of the jury, I looked into the crowd, and I didn’t waver. I’m not saying this like I’m a badass, but I guess I am a badass, because it was a very, very difficult time, because other people could’ve cracked. I did take out a picture of my kids, and I put it in front of me. And I had an ear infection, and flying in didn’t help it, so I was kind of sick that day. What people don’t understand is this is not TV. You’re not whisked in from a back room with a black hoodie on and then sworn in and you testify and then you’re whisked out. I walked up the center aisle of a courthouse that was standing-room-only.

Elie Honig:

My memory of that cross-examination is the lawyer didn’t lay a glove on you, and I think the reason for that was because only the top tier of cooperators understood what you were saying earlier, that you just have to own up to everything. And if you’ve got nothing to hide, then I’m going to bring it all out with you on your direct exam. There’s no secrets, so it makes you, in an odd way, while you’re up there admitting all the things you’ve done, you’re invulnerable, because as we tell the jury, it’s not about whether you love this guy. It’s about whether you believe him.

Michael Visconti:

You’re right. You’re exactly right. And I can remember a lot of the cross-examination questions vividly, even after all these years. But I can remember one part where he… Again, I used to say he took this out of a YouTube video from Cutler, and he slammed his fist on the desk.

Elie Honig:

Bruce Cutler is the famous Gotti mob-

Michael Visconti:

Gotti attorney that thinks he’s a gangster. He had the double-breasted suit on, this guy, and he was all done up, and he slammed his fist on the podium, and he says, “Isn’t it true, Mr. Visconti, that you’re only up here to save your own ass?” And I said, “Yes, I am. Next question.” And he didn’t know what to fucking say. The bottom line is it was difficult, yes, to look at Angelo. And he stared me down, and I looked at my kids, and I stared at him.

Elie Honig:

So we’re clear, Angelo was convicted on all the counts in that trial, got life, and died a few years ago in prison.

Michael Visconti:

He’s dead. It’s a shame he died in jail. But I’m here. Did I win? I guess so. If we’re trying to do W’s and L’s, I guess I won. I was not going to allow somebody to screw me over and lie to me. And the bottom line here is I would’ve done five years with toilet paper underneath my head, laying on a concrete floor, if he did the right thing. But it all works out for the best, Elie, because eventually, I would’ve gotten busted and went to jail or dead. I got to raise my kids the best way I could, and they’re all successful, intelligent young people, and I didn’t miss anything. He did, so that’s a win.

Elie Honig:

Now, after Visconti testified, he came to a moment of truth: his sentencing. And that sentencing was held back in New Jersey because of the procedural way these cases go.

Elie Honig:

Tell me what you remember about that day and your sentencing. How nervous were you? We had written you a very strong what we call a 5K letter, a cooperator letter to the judge, but look, you could’ve gotten sentenced to a long time right there that day. How did that feel that day?

Michael Visconti:

Up until the reading of the sentencing, I was really, really scared, because at that point, you’re going to jail as a witness. You’re going to do your time in confinement. It’s a really, really tough thing. There was quite a few people there, and there was some sentencing before mine that didn’t go so well. Elie had a staff from New York, and the agents were there. Some of my family members, my wife. And we were all nervous. It made it easier. It made it much easier. It was a comforting feeling, although it was scary. I’m not going to say it wasn’t. But it was a comforting feeling. And people that are listening to this podcast, listen to me. I’m not saying I’m the greatest thing in the world, but I do have a great memory, and I’m not rattled too easily. And when you’re prepped by people as good as Elie and Lisa, I was ready for battle.

Elie Honig:

Lisa Zornberg was another SDNY prosecutor. She was my partner in this trial and many others. Lisa’s about five-foot-nothing, but believe me, she terrified these mobsters. You’ll hear from Lisa in a future episode.

Michael Visconti:

With that being said, the average letter written could be a paragraph to a couple sentences. Mine was a novel. Elie and Lisa wrote a novel for me, and I have it. I read it very often, and it’s quite compelling. It touches my heart every single time that I look at it, more than you’ll ever know, Elie. I read that all the time just to keep things in perspective for me.

Elie Honig:

It’s a good reminder of the good and the bad, because those letters would say, “Here’s all the bad stuff he did, and here’s all the cooperation.” It’s not a rosy picture, right? It’s everything.

Elie Honig:

And I want to tell you one thing that happened at that sentencing in New Jersey. I don’t think I ever told you this. It never happened to me in any other sentencing. We’re waiting there in the courtroom, full courtroom, and someone, it must’ve been a clerk or a deputy for the judge, signals me, gives me the come here, and I go up towards the bench and hang a left out into not quite the chambers, but a little anteroom, and the judge is there. And I don’t know this judge. He’s a New Jersey judge. I’m a New York prosecutor. And the judge goes to me. “What do you want me to do here?”

Michael Visconti:

Wow.

Elie Honig:

I said, “Well, we put in our letter,” where we don’t make any specific recommendations, and he goes, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got your letter.” He goes, “You want me to walk this guy or what?” And I said-

Michael Visconti:

I didn’t know that.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. Well, listen. I said, “Well, if you’re asking, yeah. I do.” And the judge said, “Okay. Okay.” I went back into the crowd, and we went through the motions, and you were sentenced to no additional jail time. There you go.

Michael Visconti:

Wow.

Elie Honig:

But Visconti’s problems were far from over.

Michael Visconti:

I don’t know if you know this or not, Elie, but it’s the federal government’s responsibility, if they hear something, to tell you. Angelo Prisco put a hit out on me. Several of them. One was with a guy that wore a wire on him in jail, and he wanted to have me killed. The wire was, “You better be a tough guy, because this guy’s a tough guy. Just get it done.” And then he hired an attorney, and the attorney was going to kill me. He ended up getting sentenced himself, the guy in New Jersey. Do you know about that?

Elie Honig:

Oh. Paul Bergrin.

Michael Visconti:

Yeah. Paul was going to kill me.

Elie Honig:

Oh my goodness. He got convicted of putting hits out on witnesses.

Michael Visconti:

Yes. There’s always a young guy that wants to make a name for himself, but I’m still very cautious. That’s the way I run my life.

Elie Honig:

Michael, from the start, as you said earlier, your family, your real family, not the Genovese family, your real family was your top motivation. What did you tell your kids? They were young back then, but what do you tell them now that they’re older about this part of your life?

Michael Visconti:

That’s a tough one. The youngest one really doesn’t know much. The older one knows everything. And my middle one has seen stuff, Googling. I guess I still look like a gangster, I guess. I don’t know. They’ll say, “Dad, was he on The Sopranos?”

Elie Honig:

You do have a look.

Michael Visconti:

Yeah, I have a look. That comes up. I didn’t lie. I just said, “I made a bad choice in life. That’s what Daddy did, and this is what Daddy does.” I don’t know. I don’t know how they feel. I don’t know how they feel. It is what it is. I don’t know. That’s a great question.

Elie Honig:

And look, I know there’s no easy answer. Let me give you this hypothetical. Let’s assume you never have gotten caught, you never have gone to jail, all right? Option A. I’m going to give you two options here. You’re going to stay with Angelo, you’re going to get made, and you’re going to live that life for the rest of your life. And option B is you flip and you live your life that you have now. What are you choosing?

Michael Visconti:

My life now, because I don’t have to look over my shoulder, and I don’t have to worry about making a graduation or a play or a game or a dinner. I’m here. In retrospect, I’m happy.

Elie Honig:

What you’ve done with your life and the way that you really came clean and did this the right way is something that I’m proud of, and I’m proud of you for doing.

Michael Visconti:

I thank you. Honestly, when I say this, I was a maybe for you until I started speaking that day. I did this for all the right reasons. I can tell you this. Not all of us are animals. I’m not saying I’m a better person or I’m above anyone else. They’re crimes. I’m not saying that what I did was ever right, but I treat people the way I’m treated. If you give me loyalty and respect, I’m going to give it back to you. If I give it, I expect it. I got all that from you. Words really can’t describe it unless you’ve been through it. But there is hope after that, I can tell you that right now. It’s good stuff.

Michael Visconti:

And let me tell whoever’s listening out there, and this is the God’s honest truth, I’m still the same guy. I’m still 258 pounds, I’m 50-plus years old, and I can still bench-press over 400 pounds. I’m still a nasty, nasty guy. If I get a delusion in any way, shape, or form about my family or me, you better bring your lunch, because you’re going to have a big problem. That’s number one. And number two is, walking into somebody’s house with a gun, tying somebody up, smacking the wiseguy around, doesn’t take balls. Getting on a stand and testifying takes more balls than anybody’s ever gotten to live.

Elie Honig:

It was remarkable to catch up with Visconti. It’s not my business to stay in touch with cooperating witnesses and see how they do after the fact, but honestly, I do sometimes, and it’s easier now that I’m not a prosecutor anymore. And I’ll tell you, it doesn’t always work out well for cooperators. Sometimes, they fall back into crimes or other problems. Sometimes, they struggle to reestablish themselves in the real world. It’s not an easy adjustment, so when I reached out to Visconti about doing this interview, I was pleasantly surprised to learn how well he was doing on his own, in his post-Mafia life, taking care of his family, his real family. Maybe more than any other cooperator I ever worked with, Visconti understands clearly that he’s no saint, he did bad things in his life, no question, but he’s also doing his best to make it right and to get his own life back on track.

Elie Honig:

On the next episode of Up Against the Mob, we’ll speak with famed Mafia defense attorney Murray Richman. For decades, Murray has been among the most respected and successful criminal defense lawyers in the country. A few years back, Murray and I even went head-to-head at a mob murder trial when I was an SDNY prosecutor.

Elie Honig:

For a behind-the-scenes look at each episode of Up Against the Mob, become a member of CAFE Insider and catch me in conversation with Safeena Mecklai, who was a cohost of mine on the Third Degree podcast. You can do that at cafe.com/insider. And for a limited time, get 50% off the annual membership price with the special code mob. That’s special code M-O-B, mob, and you can do that at cafe.com/insider.

Elie Honig:

That’s it for this episode of Up Against the Mob. Thanks again to my guest, Michael Visconti. If you like what you heard, please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners to find the show. And as always, please send us your thoughts or questions to letters@cafe.com.

Elie Honig:

Up Against the Mob is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I’m your host, Elie Honig. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The senior producer is Adam Waller. The technical director is David Tatasciore. Music is by Nat Weiner. The CAFE team is Matt Billy, David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, and Jake Kaplan. Special thanks to Nate White for his help with research. I’m Elie Honig, and this is Up Against the Mob.