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. Once I be came a prosecutor, I mostly lost my ability to watch cop shows and legal movies and courtroom dramas. Don’t get me wrong. I love a good legal thriller as much as anybody. But when I started trying cases myself, I couldn’t help it. Everything I saw on screen seemed fake, artificial, unrealistic, sanitized or glorified, Hollywood eyes. I always had some nitpick To Kill a Mockingbird, transcendently great movie.

Elie Honig:

And in the climactic courtroom scene, Atticus Finch, while cross examining the lying victim who claimed she’d been raped, tosses a glass to his client, Tom Robinson, to demonstrate that Robinson is right handed. Finch, then asks his own client, Robinson, who’s standing at council table a few questions about how he’s unable to use his left hand because it had gotten caught in a cotton gin when he was 12 years old.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my muscles were too loose.

Elie Honig:

Brilliant scene, sent chills down my spine. But years later, when I look at that scene, I’m still moved, but a little voice in my head keeps saying, come on the defense lawyer can’t just turn and start questioning his own client in front of the jury without calling him to the stand as a witness and subjecting him to cross by the prosecutor. Hey, I told you, I’m no fun when it comes to these things. Or take the movie, Sleepers, starring Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Dustin Hoffman. In the climactic scene De Niro’s character, Father Bobby, dramatically saves the boys from a murder conviction by providing the perfect alibi from the witness stand. He was with them on the night in question at a Knicks game. And to prove it De Niro whips out a set of ticket stubs from his pocket.

Speaker 3:

And the priest wouldn’t lie. Am I right?

Speaker 4:

A priest with ticket stubs wouldn’t need to lie. And I always keep the stubs.

Elie Honig:

Not guilty, dramatic, exciting, right? Well, sure. The first time I saw it, when it came out before I went to law school, but when I re-watched it, years later it was ruined for me. I said, “Oh, come on, those tickets wouldn’t be admissible. Someone would have to authenticate them.” The defense never even provided them in discovery. And they don’t really prove anything anyway. The tickets could be counterfeit, they could be somebody else’s or maybe De Niro just went to the game with a couple other people. Yeah. Not much fun to watch crime movies with.

Elie Honig:

But every once in a while, a movie just absolutely nails it. When Goodfellas came out in 1990, I was 15 years old and I was awestruck. No, I wasn’t savvy enough to slip into a theater and see it. But I rented it from Blockbuster Video, I know we all remember those, many, many times over. And for perhaps the best compliment I can give it is that even years later, even after I became a real life mafia prosecutor, not only does it hold up, but it stands out for its brutal unflinching accuracy. And I don’t just mean legally, I mean in terms of capturing the feel, the culture, the vibe of the mafia, the language, the clothes, the food, the swagger. Sure. But also the fear and the jealousy, the paranoia and the grind. It’s almost perfect. Almost.

Elie Honig:

When I started out as a real life mob prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, I carried with me the same set of awe that I felt when I first saw the movie as a teenager. At times, it felt surreal. I can’t believe this world really exists. And I get to be part of it even as an outsider, even as the antagonist of the Goodfellas. The same way that a young Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) character in the movie feels that sense of awe, that thrill, at big part of something so exciting. And even pities his friends who have to live normal, boring lives. I understood how that felt as a prosecutor, the adrenaline and wonderment and the mild sympathy for others who don’t get to do this stuff.

Elie Honig:

And by the end of my career, well, I didn’t end up in anything like the bad shape that Henry, but I definitely had acquired that more hardened, been through a lot type outlook. And by then I was able to see through a lot of the facade, the glamor and posturing, the Hollywood portrayal of the life. Instead, I came to know The Mob clearly for what it really is, a brutal vicious life where loyalty is superficial and you’re always a moment away from your own demise.

Elie Honig:

So today we’re going to have some fun. We’re going to look back at Martin Scorsese’s 1990 classic Goodfellas. I’m sure you’ve seen Goodfellas reviews and recaps and analysis. But today you’re going to hear something that’s never been done before. I’ll be joined by two of my four Southern District of New York organized crime colleagues. And the three of us will break down Goodfellas from the perspective of our real life work as mob prosecutors. We’ll tell you what was real, what wasn’t and what parts of the movie reminded us of our own experiences. Like I said before, whenever people ask me whether being a mob prosecutor was like in the movies, I always answer, it’s better.

Elie Honig:

Lisa Zornberg and Dan Chung, thank you both so much for joining me. I can’t wait to talk about this movie with you. First of all, Lisa Zornberg. So Lisa worked 16 years at the SDNY. She was universally and is universally respected, admired, dare I even say beloved, so much so that when she left the office in 2012, after a great run as an AUSA, they brought her back a few years later in 2016 to be the chief of the entire criminal division, where she served until 2018. Lisa now works at the New York City and really international law firm, Debevoise & Plimpton.

Elie Honig:

Now, a couple interesting notes about Lisa. First of all, when she was out of law school, she clerked for then judge now justice, Sonia Sotomayor. I guess, less illustrious, Lisa was known and I was known as Lisa’s work spouse at the SDNY. And that’s a common phrase that we used for somebody who you always seem to end up on cases with. The way Lisa and I became work spouses was, I was about to try a case with five defendants. And my trial partner, his wife was pregnant with twins. And we had done some dumb guy math and calculated that there’s no way she was going to give birth until maybe towards the end of trial. And then he emailed me eight days before the trial and said, “Good news and bad news, my wife just gave birth to beautiful, healthy twins. You need a new trial partner.”

Elie Honig:

And so I sent out an office wide email eight days before a five defendant trial and a stunning number of people stepped up and volunteered to do it. And Lisa was the one who they paired up with me and we became work spouses then. So Lisa, did you have any idea what you were getting into when you sent that fateful email?

Lisa Zornberg:

Well, I did suspect that the twins would come early, but-

Elie Honig:

Well, women know this stuff better than men.

Lisa Zornberg:

Did I notice? You know what? It was a great foray into the world of organized crime and pairing up with you. Elie, as you know, you focused so much of your work on core street gangsters. I came to a lot of the work in organized crime focusing on the money in labor, corruption and unions. And it was a marriage made in heaven.

Elie Honig:

Absolutely. And one of the great things that came out of this is I think it was The Village Voice gave you what would be the perfect mob nickname, if we had mob nicknames. They dubbed you the tiny tornado, which is just perfect. Our other guest today is Dan Chung. One of the great things about working with Dan is, was and is relentless and fearless. And together, Dan and I and other prosecutors made really a couple of huge take downs of the Gambino family. We took down bosses, the family Consigliere, Capo soldiers. The great thing was we took down one wing of the family, the Dan Marino wing, not the quarterback, but the famous Gambino family boss. And then a whole separate wing, just almost for kicks afterwards, the Bobby Vernace, Joseph Corozzo, Al Trucchio wing.

Elie Honig:

Dan won all sorts of accolades at the SDNY. They haven’t stopped. Now, Dan, I was looking at your law firm website. And Dan, by the way, now works at the international and New York based law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. So Dan, I noticed in your bio that you’ve spoken on this topic, FCPA Compliance in the Middle East: Strategies Given the Region’s Unique Cultural and Governmental Intricacies. And I thought maybe instead of Goodfellas today, we’d talk about that instead. You down with that, you ready to go?

Dan Chung:

Please, no. Absolutely, not.

Elie Honig:

No, we’re talking Goodfellas today, a legendary movie that had such wide impact. Definitely impacted me deeply. Really was a major factor in my decision to go into organized crime. The movie is remarkable for so many reasons as we’ll discuss. One of the reasons is just it’s brutal realism in depicting The Mob. Henry Hill, the real Henry Hill said publicly that he gave it about a 95% accuracy score. And I think I’d be in about that range too. So there’s so many examples that we’ll talk about where the movie is deadly accurate. But I want to start on the other foot. And I want to ask you both, and we’ll start with Lisa and then go to Dan, pick out one scene that struck you as inaccurate as no way that would really happen in the real life mob that we all know.

Lisa Zornberg:

So I’m going to go towards the end of the movie where it’s shortly before, it’s the helicopter scene, that whole series shortly before Henry Hill is busted on drug charges by the Narcos. And the movie, I think for dramatic effect suggests that the way Henry got done in was by his babysitter/accomplice having made one call from the landline telephone with the still long cord of the 1970s from Henry’s home. And I think the movie actually self corrects while they did that for dramatic effect, but in reality, that actual take down along with most mob take-downs of the 70s, 80s, even the 90s, when we were doing these cases are really large scale operations that are the product of often years of surveillance, wiretaps, even infiltration into the mob. And so that was a little unrealistic, but it gets corrected at the end when Ed McDonald is sitting down with Henry and his wife, Karen, and making perfectly clear that they’ve been up on their phones for a long time.

Speaker 7:

I think you understand.

Karen:

I don’t know anything.

Speaker 7:

Come on, you don’t know anything. You don’t give me the babe in a woods routine, Karen. I’ve listened to those wiretaps and I’ve heard you on a telephone. You’re talking about cocaine.

Elie Honig:

Right. And I will add, we all did take-downs together. We definitely never had access to any FBI helicopter to track our targets. That would’ve been nice. Dan, how about you? Give us a scene that jumped out at you as being inaccurate or inconsistent with your direct experience with making mob cases?

Dan Chung:

Well, essentially two related scenes. One was early on in the film. And they both have to do with the Paul Cicero character. So I guess the captain of the crew there in Brooklyn. When Henry first gets pinched for selling the stolen cigarettes and he shows up in court and the entire crews, they’re waiting for him outside the courtroom, including the capo. I found that absolutely unbelievable. Putting aside the loud celebration once he comes out. The fact that they’re all there, including the Paul Cicero character I found unbelievable.

Dan Chung:

And I guess somewhat related to that fast forward to later in the movie after Henry and the others get arrested on the coke charges, it looks like one of the first people that Henry went to in person was again Paul Cicero. I don’t think that would really happen. I don’t think Paul would’ve allowed that to happen, to have him show up and talk about the case, talk about the past.

Elie Honig:

The scene to me that I had a little bit of a hard time swallowing is probably the most controversial scene among in the movie world, I guess, which is towards the end of the movie when Robert De Niro’s character, Jimmy Conway, sends Karen, the Lorraine Bracco, character down the street to pick up the swag dresses.

Jimmy:

Go ahead. [inaudible 00:13:41] in there.

Karen:

Oh Jimmy, I’m in a hurry. My mom’s watching [crosstalk 00:13:50]. I’ll come back later.

Elie Honig:

And the debate is, is Jimmy trying to kill Karen there is he trying to have her walk into a trap so she can be shot and killed? I lean towards yes there. I think when you look at all the factors there’s a debate there. But if Jimmy Conway is really trying to kill Karen, no way on earth that would happen. Look, the mob has many rules. We’ll talk about them. And as you guys know from our experience, those are only rules until they’re broken for some financial reason or reason of convenience. But one of the rules that I never saw breached or broken was you don’t mess with a made guy. You don’t mess with anyone’s family. Okay. You don’t go after a made guy’s family, an associate’s family. You don’t try to get back at that guy by attacking a wife or a child.

Elie Honig:

So I can’t think of that ever happening. That was one of the few rules that to me was actually upheld and honored. Again, we can debate whether that’s really what Robert De Niro’s character was going to do. I’m curious, where do you guys come out? Having watched that scene, do you believe De Niro was going to kill Lorraine Bracco’s Karen Hill character or not? Lisa, if you could take that first?

Lisa Zornberg:

Elie, no. I think it’s the perfect storm of their Coke addiction, Karen and Henry, both addicted to Coke. They’re utter paranoia that having gotten out of prison on his most recent arrest, Henry, is being eyed as a possible snitch. And so I think it was a brilliant piece of movie filming of building that suspense and purposely leaving the viewer to debate whether this is real or paranoia. But I lean on the paranoia side of the scale.

Elie Honig:

Dan, how about you? Where do you come out? Attempted murder or not?

Dan Chung:

I tend to agree with you guys just based on, Elie, just what you talked about how there is an unwritten rule, no families. But the Jimmy Conway character is based on the real life, Jimmy Burke, who was a pretty brutal guy. So it’s complicated, right? There are the mob rules and there are folks that are associates who are outside, will never get made. And oftentimes those guys are the most brutal guys and who knows what they were capable of?

Elie Honig:

I want to go back to nicknames, because it’s fun and it’s really important part of mob culture. And there’s the great scene early on in the movie where you get introduced to basically the whole crew and they’re walking through that bar, restaurant. And Henry Hill is just introducing the characters one after the other. There’s Fat Andy and Frankie the Wop and Freddy No Nose and Pete the Killer, Sally Balls’, Nickey Eyes, Jimmy Two-Times. Of course, Jimmy Two-Times is the most famous one, because he says everything two times.

Jimmy Two-Times:

I’m going to go get the papers, get the papers.

Elie Honig:

Let’s talk about something much more serious in the context of Goodfellas and in the context of real life, which is mob murders. And I prosecuted mob murders with both of you, different mob murders. And I thought the movie was so deadly accurate because Henry Hill talks about in his narrator context, he says…

Henry Hill:

See your murderers come with smiles. They come as your friends, the people who have cared for you all of your life. And they always seem to come at a time when you’re at your weakest and most in need of their help.

Elie Honig:

And to me, it rang such bells. I had a cooperator who had pled guilty to three different murders. And one thing he said to me, he was one of my first cooperators that had always stuck with me. He said, “Your best friend in the mob is also going to be the last person you’ll ever see.” And the movie made me think of that line. And both of us did murder cases that had a really chilling aspect of that, of people being killed by their friends. And Dan, I’m going to go to you first, and more than friends even. So tell us about the Dan Marino murder of Frank Hydell.

Dan Chung:

Yeah. The Frank Hydell murder is a chilling one, but it’s also unique. I thought it was unique, because something over maybe a 10 to 20 year period. We had a dozen folks, both associates and made guys plead or ultimately get convicted on this murder. So Frank Hydell was an associate with a Gambino crew, I think, based principally out of Staten Island. And he had been arrested a number of times, but didn’t spend a day in jail. And so his crew started getting a little suspicious that he may be cooperating, that he may have turned. And I think were planning a few burglaries somewhere in Staten Island or New Jersey. They were getting concerned that Frank was providing information to the bureau.

Dan Chung:

And so I think at the same time, they got a tip from the Colombo family boss at the time that Hydell may have been talking as well. And so the crew after getting wind of this thought they had to whack him, they had to take care of him. And Daniel Marino, I think, at the time was the boss on the leadership panel of the Gambino family. He was in jail though. I think in connection with another murder. And they got permission from Daniel Marino while he was in jail to take a hit on Frank Hydell, but here’s the kicker.

Dan Chung:

Frank Hydell was Daniel Marino’s nephew on his wife’s side. So it wasn’t just permission to take him out, but permission to take out his own nephew, not by blood, but certainly his nephew. And a couple of his friends that run his crew lured him as he was walking out of a strip club, I think it was then Scarletts in Staten Island and shot him at the back of the head three times, left him out down the street.

Elie Honig:

That one always haunts me because of the fact that the uncle commissioned and authorized the murder of his nephew, which he had to. It could not have gone forward without Daniel Marino’s blessing. And the way they got him out to that strip club. Two of his best friend said, “Hey, let’s go for a drink.” And a third one just walked up to them in the parking lot and shot and killed Frank Hydell. But that’s real life. And Goodfellas, I think did capture that with a lot of the murders in particular, of course, the murder towards the end of Joe Pesci’s character, Tommy DeVito. He thinks he’s going to get made and he thinks it’s going to be the great honor of his life by these guys. He’s known since he was a teenager and they just pop him in the back of the head.

Speaker 12:

Oh no.

Elie Honig:

That to me was brutally realistic. And Lisa, you mentioned another really important concept of respect and disrespect, this notion of he’s a man of respect, he’s a man of disrespect. To me, that’s one of the animating themes throughout the movie. Of course, best encapsulated by Pesci’s character who always has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder about whether he’s getting the right level of respect. So tell us a bit about your thoughts there and how that whole notion of who’s being respected and machismo translates into the real life mafia.

Lisa Zornberg:

Okay. A lot of people in the mafia are just idiots. They are hyped up-

Elie Honig:

To put it bluntly.

Lisa Zornberg:

…hyped up, masculine tough guy seeking guys who would get into it with each other over things large and small and idiotic. And a lot of the cases we prosecuted were situations that morphed out of something stupid that people took as a sign of disrespect that kept escalating. And that is so true in Goodfellas. The movie actually is all about this theme. It opens with the murder victim in still alive in the trunk and being killed. And towards the end, as you said, Tommy DeVito himself gets killed for that murder, which rose out of the shine box incident with who can replicate De Niro’s line.

De Niro:

No, no, no, you insulted him a little bit. You got a little out of all yourself.

Speaker 14:

I didn’t insult him. I didn’t insult him.

De Niro:

You insulted him a little bit.

Speaker 14:

No, I didn’t insult nobody. Give us a drink, give us a drink. Okay.

Lisa Zornberg:

But even a little insult to someone who’s a sociopath or has a monster ego that they’re looking to stroke all the time escalates when you have people who have a propensity for violence.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. It is remarkable the acts of very serious violence in the movie and in real life that can come out of the stupidest little things. A couple things that jumped to my mind, I did an attempted murder in a different trial with other people where a guy got shot nine times and he lived remarkably. It would’ve been a full murder. And the original cause of the beef was Tony Bennett concert tickets. It goes from Tony Bennett concert tickets and who wronged who to someone getting shot nine times. I did another one, I guess-

Lisa Zornberg:

Elie, I just have to interject.

Elie Honig:

Yes, please.

Lisa Zornberg:

I would do a lot Tony Bennett tickets. Let’s get back to Tony Bennett.

Elie Honig:

Look, if it’s one of those like duets with Lady Gaga I get it. Tony Bennett is a legend. Also, less scary, I guess, but still funny, every time I see tartufo on a restaurant menu or in a freezer at an Italian deli, Huck Carbonaro was a really powerful, heavy set Gambino family captain. And I did a case where one of the lower level charges was a serious beating that Huck Carbonaro had ordered because at a restaurant one time that Huck had an interest in the tartufos were missing and somebody asked what happened to all our tartufos? And this guy joked, “Huck must have eaten them all.” Well, word got back to Huck that, that little joke was made. And as De Niro says a little bit, you insulted him a little bit and it resulted in a serious beating.

Elie Honig:

And I do have to say one thing about that little bit. Sometimes you’ll hear a phrase and then you’ll see it in a movie and you’ll go, “Oh, that’s where that comes from.” Preet Bharara, our boss would say that sometimes. I would hear him say a little bit, a little bit, and I’d go, “What is that?” And then couple years later, re-watching Goodfellas, I said, “Oh, okay, I got it. It comes full circle.” Dan any thoughts from you on this whole notion of the mob machismo?

Dan Chung:

Yeah. The scenes particularly with Tommy just reminded me of long sessions I had with cooperators guys who were in crews and in addition to the murders and the drugs and the lone sharking and the extortion. It just seemed like it was an everyday thing that they got into a fist fight or just we’re obsessed with even the smallest of slights from the most harmless of people.

Elie Honig:

We talked about this process of flipping people and cooperating people. And you get to see the whole process where Henry makes the fateful decision that it’s time to flip, because he’s out of options. He says…

Henry Hill:

I’m afraid, I’m going to wrap them out. People are already walking away from me. I’m dead in here. You got to get me out.

Elie Honig:

He knows he’s out of options. And we would look for that kind of cooperative, guys who are out of options or had no better choice in life. And Lisa, tell us about the psychology. In your experience, what was it that drove people to cooperate? And do you think the movie was accurate in the way it depicted Henry Hill’s decision to cooperate?

Lisa Zornberg:

I do think the movie was accurate and tells part of the story you’ve got. First of all, I think that cooperators typically tend to make rational decisions that are self centered at the end of the day on what matters to them the most. Maybe it’s just themselves and not dying in prison, maybe it’s cooperating because they feel that’s the best way to bring safety to their family, which we saw in Goodfellas. Part of it was the fact that Karen and Karen’s kids probably would be in danger if he stayed out on the street at that point. And they would become targets at some point.

Lisa Zornberg:

So there’s the line in the movie, look, we’re your only salvation. That’s true for a number of cooperators. There are other cooperators who, especially in organized crime, we would see sometimes cooperators turning to the government late in life. The whole premise of the mafia life is this intoxication with feeling special, with not having to wait online at the bakery, with feeling that you can get what you want, you can take it. And when these guys become husbands, some of them, whether they feel disrespected or they’ve been put on the shelf or it’s later in life and they’ve fallen out of the conceived glamor that really held them in sway, you actually would work with these guys and see that they almost took on a second life of feeling special as government cooperators.

Lisa Zornberg:

They wanted an opportunity to tell their stories this time from a witness stand. And it speaks to this human craving, I think that’s the word you used, Elie, this craving to feel special. And a lot of these guys felt special, because maybe it wasn’t as good to them as living the life, but they were getting an awful lot of attention from FBI agents and prosecutors and juries. And their names were back in the newspaper. So there was that element too.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. There is such an element of ego. And as Ray Liotta’s character, Henry Hill, says at the end of the movie, when he’s done with his cooperation, he says…

Henry Hill:

I get to live the rest of my life like a shnook.

Elie Honig:

And Dan, you saw people go through this transition from being out on the streets and having life that was at times glamorous to the cooperative life. What do you think of Lisa’s theory that cooperation was a second shot at that adrenaline rush at that relevance that these guys craved? Do you agree or disagree?

Dan Chung:

I agree. Because, first of all, I’ve signed up and worked with a lot of cooperators in organized crime. I’m talking about La Cosa Nostra, Russian organized crime, Asian organized crime just across the board. And I got to say the mob cooperators were the best storytellers. And you could just tell they loved talking about it.

Elie Honig:

There is a scene in the movie that struck me as so deadly accurate, and it’s the Ed McDonald’s scene that Lisa talked to. And everyone’s nodding our heads, because we’ve all had this conversation where somebody’s about ready to cooperate. And Ed McDonald, who was an AUSA actually plays an AUSA in the movie. And the only way he could have nailed it so perfectly is because he was an AUSA and he did this. And by the way, he was a very good defense lawyer. I don’t know if you guys remember, but he beat two of our colleagues in the organized crime unit in around 2010 in a trial. He did a great job and he got a not guilty verdict in a mob case. I won’t name the names of our colleagues. But Ed McDonald’s a very talented lawyer in that scene where Henry Hill and Karen are asking him for all these special treatment in wits sec.

Henry Hill:

And you whenever you move me, I asked you once and I want to tell you again, I don’t want to go any place. It’s cold.

Ed McDonald:

You really don’t have a choice in that manner.

Elie Honig:

And Ed McDonald just has the exact demeanor that I think we would’ve had, which is like, “Look, you’re not special, we’d love to have you cooperate. Here’s how it works. You can take it or leave it.” It’s a great scene. It’s so deadly accurate. The whole notion of the schnook I think is so perfectly encapsulated by the quote from the Ray Liotta, Henry Hill, about how he’s living in this tract housing and he says…

Henry Hill:

Can’t even get decent food.

Ed McDonald:

Right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg noodles and ketchup.

Elie Honig:

We have to pause here. We have to talk food, because food is such an important part of this movie. I think you’re both cooks, right?

Lisa Zornberg:

I am. Yeah.

Elie Honig:

Lisa, I know you. And Dan?

Dan Chung:

Yeah, absolutely.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. Okay. So here’s the thing, first of all, have you tried to do the razor blade, slicing the garlic thing and have you sliced it thin enough that as they say in the movie, it actually melts in the pan, because I’ve tried it and I can’t. Either I’m not cutting it thin enough or I don’t have my heat. Have you tried it and does it work? Dan?

Dan Chung:

Not with a razor blade, but with my chef’s knives. And I think I got it. Maybe not as quick.

Lisa Zornberg:

Same.

Dan Chung:

Yeah. Maybe not as as quickly as Paulie says it does, but it works. And it has to be fresh garlic.

Elie Honig:

Of course. Well, Lisa, have you ever tried this? Everyone has to have tried it, right?

Lisa Zornberg:

God, no. Not with a razor blade. But, look, the theme of food that runs through Goodfellas is really a tribute to the role of food in Italian culture. Food and family is… And that’s not a mafia thing, that’s a beautiful, fantastic Italian thing. Myself growing up in Brooklyn with many Italians as part of a Jewish family, my mom grew up in Bensonhurst with the Italians community as neighbors. She always used to say to me growing up, “I’m convinced because of the food in the family.” She used to say, “Lisa, marry Jewish, but if you can’t marry Jewish marry Italian,” which is why, by the way, I get such a chuckle out of the scene where Henry who’s half Sicilian, half Irish starts dating Karen, this Jewish young lady, and goes to pick her up for their date and meets the mom. And she lies to her mom and she says, “So my daughter tells me that you’re half Jewish.” And Henry responds…

Henry Hill:

I’m just the good half.

Lisa Zornberg:

It was ridiculous, but it’s hilarious.

Dan Chung:

There are a lot of great food scenes in the movie. My favorite is actually when they murdered Billy Batts in that bar. And first of all, they got to pick up a shovel at Tommy’s mom’s house. And they’ve got this body kicking in the trunk of the car. And Tommy’s mom says…

Speaker 16:

Look, go inside, make yourself comfortable. I’ll make something to eat.

Speaker 17:

No, no, go to sleep, go to sleep.

Speaker 16:

No, I can’t sleep.

Dan Chung:

They will stop for food for a full on to Italian meal.

Elie Honig:

In the middle of the night.

Dan Chung:

Yeah. On the way to bearing or chopping up a murder victim. That they will do.

Elie Honig:

That scene, of course, the legendary scene and the great line where Pesci’s character takes that big knife. He goes…

Tommy,  Pesci’s character:

Anyway, remind me. I need this knife. I’m going to take this. Okay.

Speaker 16:

Okay. Yeah, bring it back though.

Elie Honig:

And Lisa, to your point about the Jewish Italian thing and the good half, let me just say as a Jewish person, the image of Ray Liotta wearing the yarmulke at the wedding is iconic. Every Jewish person looks at that and laughs and loves it. That is talking about an iconic image. But let’s talk about mob wives, because mob wives are such an interesting and important part of the culture and really the cases. And Lorraine Bracco, of course, delivers a just all time classic epic performance as Karen Hill. One thing I found so interesting, all three of us did cases where the wives are always there on the outskirts. By the way, I only ever prosecuted one person I would consider a mob associate who was a female. And Dan, I was in that case with you. I don’t know if you remember the name of this person. We had one female associate. I’m putting you on the spot.

Dan Chung:

I’m drawing a blank here. Wow.

Elie Honig:

Suzanne Porcelli. Do you remember that?

Dan Chung:

Yeah, wow.

Elie Honig:

We got her to plead pretty quick. They were running a prostitution ring and she was facilitating that for her. But the wives are always there. And one thing I found so interesting in this movie is the evolution of Karen’s knowledge and involvement in Henry Hill’s activity from when they first meet on down. So Lisa, give us your view of that evolution of the Karen character in the movie and how realistic or not realistic it is in real life.

Lisa Zornberg:

Well, this brings me to my absolute favorite scene of Goodfellas, which cinematographers have hailed as one of the great scenes of modern American movie making. Of course, fans of the movie know I’m talking about the Copacabana scene. This is the scene where on really their first real date, Henry Hill takes Karen to the Copacabana and walks her through the back entrance, telling her you don’t want to wait on line. And in a scene that lasts three minutes and five seconds with a steady cam in a single shot. Henry accompanies her through the snake like underworld of the Copacabana, walking through a maze of kitchens and corridors handing out $20 bills to everyone he passes.

Lisa Zornberg:

It’s a master work of storytelling. And the whole scene, you hear the movie being blasted the song by The Crystals and then he kissed me. And it’s really a scene that captures the seduction, not only of Henry at the apex rather of his glamor of his most powerful feeling moment, but the seduction of Karen. And so the takeaway of this narration of the scene for mob wives is that the seduction of the mafia is just as real for the women as it is for the men. It’s sexy, right? It’s sexy. Karen is turned on. Henry beats the crap out of the guy who lives across the street, pistol whips him with a gun, hands her the gun and tells her to hide it. And in a voiceover, she tells the camera in the movie how turned on she is about it.

Lisa Zornberg:

That’s a very real element. I never prosecuted any mob wife, mob girlfriend, didn’t have cause to. But you know in these cases that they are not in the dark, they may not know the details of the crimes. They may not be active participants in the vast majority. A mob rule, as you said, which is only a rule until it’s broken, is not to ask, not to involve the wives in the criminal activity. You’re not supposed to hand your wife a gun and say you hide it. But rules all have their exceptions. And the palpable feeling is that the wives know and they’re allured by it, they are drawn into the life.

Elie Honig:

And I thought that the movie did such a great job of showing the evolution of the mob wives understanding and knowledge. And there’s probably an argument about how much of this is real and how much this is show and do they really know the full deal right up front. But Karen goes from that fascination, that intoxication that they show in the Copacabana scene to a don’t ask, don’t tell, where she’s starting to get a sense something’s up. She’s not stupid to the point at the end where she’s fully in trafficking drugs with him and fully involved.

Elie Honig:

Now, I never saw a wife like you, Lisa, get to that point where she was such an obvious co-conspirator and participant that she could be charged, except for Suzanne Parcelli in that one limited instance. But for the most part, in my experience, the wives know damn well what’s going on. They know they have all this wealth and money coming in from their husbands. There’s the great scene where Karen asks…

Karen:

What do you do?

Henry Hill:

What?

Karen:

What do you do?

Henry Hill:

I’m in construction.

Karen:

I don’t feel like you’re in construction.

Henry Hill:

I’m a union delegate.

Elie Honig:

Great, exactly what they would be saying.

Lisa Zornberg:

Let me put it this way, Elie. Even if the wives were not aiders and abettors of criminal activity, they were all witnesses. There was a lot that they could say if they were ever to speak the truth.

Elie Honig:

Dan, any view on the mob wives issue, the way it’s portrayed in the movie or real life?

Dan Chung:

Well, one thing that always struck me about the mob wives or the mob girlfriends is what happens to the relationships after these guys are arrested and detained and are in jail waiting for trial. I think folks generally know that at least in the federal system, inmates phone calls are recorded. And as part of our continuing investigations, the agents often listen to recordings of these phone calls. And it was equal parts sad and hilarious to hear some of the conversations between some of these guys and their girlfriends or their wives. We had heard stories that they were tough guys off and mistreated, beat their significant others. And once they’re in jail, they’re pining and crying for love and whatever else. So that’s another kind of a reality check, once your back’s against the wall.

Elie Honig:

The whole notion, and Dan, this is such an important part of real life mob culture and how they try to keep people in line. There’s this whole notion of taking care of the family when a guy’s away doing his bit in prison. And they talk about this briefly in the movie where Karen is complaining that she’s got nothing coming in when Henry’s in jail. And what she means by that is what’s supposed to happen, what the mob tells you will happen is if you get pinched and you go away and you stay silent and you don’t cooperate, we’ll take care of your family. Someone will come by with an envelope. And in my experience, listen up anyone out there who’s in the mob or thinking about joining the mob, they will not take care of you in prison. And the movie is deadly accurate about that. So, Lisa, give us your thoughts on this whole idea of the deep seated hypocrisy in the mob, both in Goodfellas and in real life, this idea that there’s this glossy veneer, but it really covers up a brutal cold lifestyle.

Lisa Zornberg:

I’m one of those people who prosecuted organized crime, who was never seduced by the charm of it. Although I appreciate the sense of humor and charm like anyone else. I think it’s all hypocrisy and facade. And I agree Goodfellas does a brilliant job of showing it. Let me give you a couple of examples just to tick off. Living the high life, this idea that you’re living the high life, the reality is most people in organized crime are barely scraping by. They live mean unsuccessful lives. The hypocrisy surrounding honor and loyalty, this notion that you’re part of something that involves loyalty and silence and honor to one another, when the reality is that more often than not, it’s all about betrayal. Even in the movie, Frankie Carbone, the Italian speaking gangster, who has the best worst hair-

Elie Honig:

Right. He’s the guy with the helmet hair. Yes.

Lisa Zornberg:

Yes, he’s the one. Yes. He ends up frozen in a meat locker. So there’s constant betrayal, whether it’s someone who flips to cooperate or whether it’s just taking each other out and ending up murdered at the hands of someone who doesn’t think you’re useful anymore. Even the whole old charm life of it, is hypocrisy, because in reality, and again, the movie shows this with both the James Conway, Jimmy Conway characters and the Tommy DeVito characters, in reality, these are guys with a tremendous propensity for violence. Many are psychopaths, many are wannabes who are addicted to drug and alcohol. So the drugs that’s part of the hypocrisy, but it is deep.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. And I’m glad you talked about this veneer of charisma, because some of the guys we prosecuted were monsters, but also charismatic in a way that sometimes worried me a bit in front of the jury. Angelo Prisco was a charismatic guy. I did other guys who I was worried the jury might like. I think the jury ended up liking when I prosecuted John Gotti Jr. Neither of you are responsible for that one. But Dan, I think our guys were less likable. I think they were a little lower on the charisma.

Dan Chung:

Exactly. Yeah. And I think just focusing on drugs and alcohol and other things that the mob actually on the surface looked down on or as an unwritten rule called considered taboo. Drugs by the 80s and 90s, the Gambino family was one of the biggest runners of cocaine in the city, in the world. Heroin as well.

Lisa Zornberg:

It’s worth noting that Goodfellas came out in 1990. And just a few years before that was the convictions that ended the pizza connection case, which was a huge mafia case of the 1980s that exposed international heroin dealing in Sicily through Turkey, across the United States, using pizza parlors as the fronts for drug distribution and money laundering. And that case probably more than any other, exposed this hypocrisy that supposedly the mafia doesn’t get involved in drugs. And so what Scorsese really did was on the heels of that case, on the heels of the commission case, another case in the late 80s where the bosses of the Genovese, Lucchese, Colombo families were all convicted in the Southern District of New York. He exposed with this incredible narrative and realism what this hypocrisy was about.

Elie Honig:

Dan, has this movie been ruined, enhanced, changed for you now as a result of your real life experience?

Dan Chung:

Not really. Because when I watched these movies, I don’t necessarily watch them through the lens of what I know or what I experience in these mob prosecutions. But just, number one, for their entertainment value. They’re wildly entertaining. And I think we’ve touched on this theme a lot. It’s why I think the mob, although, I guess in a different form still exists today, there’s a romance associated with it. But it’s also part of history, the history of New York City, the history of this country. In its heyday in the middle of the 20th century up until let’s say the late 80s, these families penetrated the highest levels of New York City government, penetrated all the major industries, labor unions. They ran the city to some extent. You hear that a lot, but that is not an exaggeration.

Dan Chung:

And I think what you saw or what you see in Goodfellas is a microcosm. It’s a focus on what looks like a smaller crew, but it’s a microcosm of it. And I just think about the neighborhoods. There are the last surviving outposts, at least of the Gambino family these days are Ozone Park, parts of Brooklyn, that I think have just been weighed down for decades by crime, including La Cosa Nostra organized crime. And there are other gangs that have weighed down those neighborhoods. But what makes La Cosa Nostra unique is that it is a life, it is a culture of crime. And on the other side of it is the federal government. They’re essentially your enemies. And we do everything to perpetuate this life of crime.

Dan Chung:

And they bring in young people, folks who are not Italian, who sometimes have no choice, but to arguably live a life of crime, but in other times are just seduced by the romance. And it has just weighed down these neighborhoods for decades to the point where it’s just part of the Robinhood culture in a lot of these neighborhoods.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. And the thing is the influence isn’t as dramatic right now as it was years ago. But someone still literally has to die in order for a spot to open up for somebody to get in. And you guys know this as well as I. When these guys get made, that is their life dream. And the movie shows it almost with Tommy when he thinks he’s getting made, but it goes the other way. But they work for decades and there’s people out there still now who are striving the same way that a person might strive to make partner to law firm and work for years and years. That’s still how the mob is. It still has this allure, particularly in certain areas of New York City.

Elie Honig:

For me, the movie, I think the movie in an odd way parallels my own relationship to the mafia. When you start, when you come into the Organized Crime Unit, moved on to that floor, it feels almost like that Copacabana scene that Lisa talked about. Your head is spun. I can’t believe this is real. I can’t believe I get to do this. I can’t believe I know people who are mob guys who are cooperators. And there’s this sense of glamor and wonderment. And years later, by the end of the movie, there’s a cold hard reality to it and a grizzly reality, and you see the real cost of it. And the glamor has dropped away, although the stories remain great. And I know we all will probably see it as a career highlight forever that we did these cases, but you get to see through that facade.

Elie Honig:

And I think the movie does a wonderful job of starting you off with the glamor. And by the end, you’re almost a grizzled prosecutor, two hours later. Lisa Zornberg and Dan Chung, I want to thank you again for joining me today. This was a blast. As the audience can probably tell, I and you guys and our other colleagues could talk mob stuff all day long. But thank you, Dan, thank you, Lisa, so much for being with us today.

Lisa Zornberg:

Pleasure.

Dan Chung:

You bet.

Elie Honig:

Okay, that was fun. It made me feel like I was back at the SDNY hanging out and shooting the breeze with my colleagues, my friends. And what you just heard is really how it was, by the way. We were constantly sharing what we call war stories, things we had seen and done and learned as prosecutors. Part of it was just fun, as I’ve said before, I did it largely for the stories, but it also was an important way that we learned about the job and each other. And the funny thing is I suspect that movies like Goodfellas are a good part of the reason why we wanted to get into organized crime work in the first place, because that work like Goodfellas itself is the absolute peak of human drama, the personalities, the tragedy and fear, the friendships and rivalries and the lighter moments as well.

Elie Honig:

And I have to admit, it’s still surreal. If you could have told the 15 year old me back in 1990, someday you’ll be doing this work that you see in Goodfellas, someday you’ll actually go after these guys, someday you’ll understand what this is all about, I would’ve been shocked, but also thrilled. Goodfellas opens with that famous line. As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. I completely understand that sentiment. No, of course, I was never meant to be a gangster, but I still got to be part of this wild and funny and scary and unpredictable world.

Elie Honig:

And that wraps up season one of Up Against the Mob. Thank you so much for checking it out. You could probably tell, I really enjoyed going back to my days as a mob prosecutor and bringing you inside the mob with me, the real mob, from every perspective. We heard from a former gangster turned cooperating witness, Michael Visconti, a lawyer who defended gangsters in court and has had a legendary career. Murray Richmond, an FBI agent, Jack Garcia, who went deep undercover to penetrate the mob. And another agent who drew the high stakes job of protecting Sammy the Bull Jimmy Gagliano. We heard from an expert on mob psychology, who explained why we glamorized these guys, Maria Konnikova. And we talked in this episode with two of my former colleagues as SDNY prosecutors who went Up Against the Mob right alongside me Lisa Zornberg and Dan Chung.

Elie Honig:

Like I said early on, I chose to become a mob prosecutor largely for the stories, the drama, the unexpected twists, the moments of comedy and humanity and the high stakes for everyone involved. I hope you got a better sense of that from this podcast. And I hope you’ll join us again when we come back with more. 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.