425: Anthony S. Luciano Raimondi | The Mob Enforcer Part One

Transcript for Anthony S. Luciano Raimondi | The Mob Enforcer Part One (Episode 425)

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] This podcast is brought to you by Microsoft Teams. When there are more ways to be together, there are more ways to be a team. 

[00:00:07] Coming up on The Jordan Harbinger Show. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:00:10] He comes in and he says, "The guy has no head. It's just the body. He shot him in the head. He blew his whole f*cking head off.” He goes, "The bodies on the floor. If you look at the body whatever and you look for the head, you can't tell if it was a man only because he's got no head. It's gone. It's like mushy. You can't tell what the hell it is." It really didn't faze me, it didn't register — maybe it didn't register. Joe Colombo says, "Give him a drink." He gives me a 7 and 7. He goes, "Look at this kid. He just killed somebody and he is sitting there, calm as a cucumber." "Oh, what happened?" "The guy went to hurt me. I killed him. I know it must be f*cking hell. What's the big freaking deal?" They were happy with me, man. I was like their golden child. They forgot about it after that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:51] Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. If you're new to the show, we have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game, astronauts, entrepreneurs, spies, psychologists, even the occasional mafia enforcer, which is what we have for you today. Each episode turns our guests' wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker — or in this case, just be kind of horrified about what's going on here.

[00:01:23] Today, it's Storytime with a former enforcer for the Italian mafia. I don't want to spoil anything here because there is a lot of interesting stuff from securities fraud to the assassination of the Pope. And you heard me right? The assassination of the Pope. This one is a two-parter. It is just bananas. I wanted to keep on going. We're going to do more after this. I'm sure there's just so much here. I'm just going to let it rip and get right into it. 

[00:01:47] And if you're wondering how I managed to book and find these people in the first place, celebrities, thinkers, authors, mafia enforcers, well, my network is massive. And I'm teaching you how to build your network for free. This is great for business, great for personal reasons. You want a promotion; this is what you need. You want to have a lot of interesting friends that may be used to kill people for a living, this is what you need. Go check out Six-Minute Networking. It's over at jordanharbinger.com/course. And by the way, many of the guests on the show, they subscribe to the course, they help out with the course. Come join us, you'll be in smart company. Now here's Anthony Salvatore Luciano Raimondi, the enforcer. 

[00:02:24] First things first, the mafia was the family business, right? Your grandfather and family were in the Black Hand.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:02:30] My grandfathers, both of my grandfathers.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:32] Both of them. Okay. Can you take us through what that is? Because I don't think a lot of people have heard of the Black Hand. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:02:37] The Black Hand, it would be — that was what you would call the original mafia. These guys here were totally different than wise guys that you have nowadays. Totally different thing. These are the type of guys that when they used to send a thing, they send an image of a Black Hand. That's why they called it that. That was a death sentence, but they were the type of guys that if they had a problem, they went out, they took care of it. That was it. They didn't run to no captain, no lieutenant, even the boss of the family. The boss, like whoever the hedge was of the Black Hand. If they had a problem, they went out to themselves and they took care of it. Over here, you got to go — if you're a regular button, you got to go to your lieutenant or your captain, then he goes okay. But then he's got to go see the underboss. So the boss makes sure if it's all right. And then go ahead and go do it. It's totally different over here in the United States. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:21] So the Black Hand is like old school Sicilian mafia. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:03:25] The Black Hand can be referred this way, if they don't get you, they'll kill your whole family. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:29] Mm-hm, so they're from the old country, not from the United States, 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:03:33] You got very few of them that are here in the United States. And they particularly don't like the American mafia or whatever it is. Because they think they're a bunch of morons with the way they do things. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:42] Why did they change the rules when they got here? 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:03:44] As time goes by and they changed the rules to suit themselves. Like years ago, you were in the crew. Okay. So you had a lieutenant or captain that you reported to. You earned the money you gave an end to them. They took their end and they kicked you down the stairs. You were in there for maybe two, three, four, five, six, up to the 10 years, maybe even longer before they put you up for membership. They made sure that you were the right guy. Now in between that time, maybe they would tell you, "Listen, we've got a problem over here with this guy. Go take care of it". So you go to see the guy and then you put them in the hospital. And they see how you react. You know, there's two ways to put them in the hospital. You broke a guy's legs. You broke his jaw or whatever it was. 

[00:04:21] Then if they've seen you did good with that — you know, if they knew they could trust you, let me put it that way — then sometimes a guy will put you up for membership. But the original deal to become a member is you had to go out and do a piece of work. And they took two other wise guys with you. Like you're one of the wise guys where you got to do a piece of work, which meant you had to do a hit. If you did it, they came back and said he did it. He did the right thing, so on and so forth. It's fine. If you froze up or you didn't do it, the guy who was with you will clip you and the guy you had to get clipped. 

[00:04:51] Now they're just making guys because — "I'm going out with your sister." "Okay. So your uncle's a big shot." Or, "You want to be big, so I'm going with your sister." "Well, you know, Anthony, I'm bringing him over here with me. I'm straightening them out." But what did I do to prove anything? Nothing. They didn't do a damn thing, or the cousin is hanging out with somebody. Somebody is going out with your aunt, somebody going out with your uncle. And that's what they are doing. Meanwhile, if you see all these guides that they were making, they all turned out to be stupid and testified in court against everybody.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:18] So it's not the same as it used to be back when you started. Obviously, it's completely different. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:05:22] Totally different ball game. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:23] By the way I saw that the Italian mob or mafia is called the Cosa Nostra. Was the Jewish Mafia really called the Kosher Nostra or did you just make that up and put that in the book? 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:05:33] That I put it up with Meyer because me and Meyer used to joke around and called it that. Me and Meyer Lansky used to joke around and called it the Kosher Nostra. He says, "You know, we've got to kill him in a kosher way." "What the f*ck are you talking about we got to kill them in a kosher way?" "You know, we bless him first and then we kill them?" He goes, "I became a rabbi. So I could bless them, then kill them." I used to laugh when he told me this. But Meyer I did a lot of work. Let me tell you he was a piece of work, this guy. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:53] It's funny to see him in movies, because he's usually depicted as this like old Jewish guy who's watching TV in a recliner and then he's like having your wife make a sandwich for you, like an accountant or something, but he wasn't that at all. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:06:05] That's Hollywood. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:06] Yeah. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:06:06] Meyer was a genius. He was the master of the shakedown. I can shake them down in a thousand different ways with this guy. He taught me how to shake a person down. They can scream. They can yell, but in the end, they're going to come up with that envelope. Meyer was a shakedown, master of the shakedown. Meyer in my records, he was a genius. He knew what to do with the money, how to make it. But when everybody doesn't realize, Meyer did his own work. He didn't get somebody else to do his own work. He went out and did it himself. Meyer buried a lot of men, and I mean, literally, he buried them. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:34] The stereotype is throwing them in the river, but that wasn't his style. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:06:37] You don't throw them in the river. I mean, you got to put a guy in the ocean, you wrap them up and put chains and weights on him. You'd dump them over the side of a boat, in the water. You got to punch a couple of holes because the gasses in the body, they'll make them float. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:48] Oh yeah.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:06:49] Either that or you buried him somewhere. You throw them in concrete, this is what they will do. There's a lot of sites around the city. I guarantee you. If they open them up, they'll find a lot of skeletons inside and aren't from the workers that worked there. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:59] Like in the foundation of the building?  

Anthony Raimondi: [00:07:01] Yeah, the foundations, the flooring. Those are like years ago, they had my cousin, Leo who had a funeral parlor called Cobble Hill Funeral Parlor. They used to bury two guys at a time in the coffin 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:10] Just to save money? 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:07:12] No. Let's say a member of your family died, right? Say a member of your family died.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:17] Right, yeah.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:07:17] And they got a word that they just whacked the guy. They'd bring them over to Leo. They would take the guy out of the coffin, take out the spring, throw the guy, put the bedding, they'll put the guy on top of him and they get buried.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:27] Yeah. That makes sense. You can tell how my brain works. I'm like, "Oh yeah, two guys in one coffin, save money." And it's like, "No, dummy. They're putting in the guy. That's not supposed to be dead in the coffin and the other guy," yeah. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:07:36] And the guy that's actually dead goes into the coffin.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:38] Yeah. Now, that makes sense. What did your relatives do? They had kind of like real jobs, but they also had their fake jobs, right? 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:07:45] No, they were all fake jobs. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:46] All fake jobs. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:07:47] They had jobs. You know, they were all in the books and whoever owned the company or whatever was with them. So they put them on the books. Yeah, this is what it says. He's taken home a thousand a week, 500 a week. Meanwhile, he never has to show up on the job. They tell you, "Oh, he's out on the field." You know he had the social club, a social club hanging out. That was the easiest thing. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:06] They say this guy works at the loading docks or something like that. "Oh yeah, he's moving some boxes," whatever because the employer just keeps him on the books and that's how he supposedly gets paid for tax reasons or whatever, but he's running around town, doing stuff. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:08:18] But the employee is with — let's say it was you — your employees with you. So you're his guy. So if he has any problems, he has to come to you. So he puts you on the record to cover yourself with the tax department. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:29] Ah, okay. That makes sense. And then in the meanwhile, if it's my company, then I have any issues. I can go, "Hey man. You know, I got this issue with these guys coming down and robbing — they're stealing the fish," or whatever.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:08:39] Because you belong to him —

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:41] Yeah.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:08:41] You belong to him, so he handles whatever problems you may have. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:43] You mentioned a different sort of like lines of work. Loansharking, I think a lot of people know what that is.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:08:48] Oh yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:48] Shylocking, which is like a funny sort of racist, I guess, 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:08:51] Same thing. It's the same thing. Loansharking, shylocking, it's the same thing.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:55] Okay. What else? Gambling, right? Was one of them. It had to be.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:08:58] Gambling, card games, poker, we had the horse races. You had numbers betting. You had sports betting. You had numbers. You had after hour clubs, legitimate clubs that you had a piece of. Like in my book two, I tell about all the clubs that I shook down in Manhattan. I shook down every big major club in Manhattan and I had a shylock business going there from Studio 54 to  Regine's to the Electric Circus to New York, New York, all of them. I had a shylock business back then. I had about 250,000 on the street in these clubs alone. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:29] And is that like a monthly collection? Is that what you mean? 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:09:31] Oh, hell, no! Every week I got my interest on that money. What are you kidding? Four percent every week at 250,000, like clockwork like that. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:38] Oh, wow. That's great. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:09:39] Yeah. I even shook down the Tunnel, Peter Gatien's joint. Although Peter might want to give me an argument about it. But I don't want to take his other eye out and then he had his friend Bowser who thought he was such a tough guy when I went there — and this is in book two and I did what I had to do and the union stopped all the work that he was doing there. And then one thing led to another and guess what? They saw the light. I wound up doing business over there and they sure gave me an envelope.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:04] Is the money literally in an envelope? 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:10:06] Yeah. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:06] Yeah. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:10:07] Yeah. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:07] That makes sense.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:10:08] They're not going to hand you the cash like that. They don't want to hand the cash like that. And matter of fact, that's the first time I saw Vin Diesel over there.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:14] Really?

Anthony Raimondi: [00:10:14] At the Tunnel. Yeah. He came over with Bowser and I was with a guy, Willie Light, who was a cousin to Meyer and I was talking, he came over and I looked at him. And I just looked at it very nicely and I turned it around by the center so he could hear me. I told Bowser, I told Willie Light. I said, "This guy got a lot of muscle." He said, "Well, yeah, if he goes to make a move, I'll put a f*cking hole in him." Excuse my language — so he can put a bowling ball through. That was the end of it. Back right up. Just backed up while I was talking to Bowser. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:44] That's funny. So was he trying — you think he was there to try to intimidate you? He's like friends with them or was he just hanging out? 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:10:49] Well, was told to come with them. Do you understand? 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:51] Ahh.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:10:52] You see he knew something was up when he's seeing me and he's seeing Willie Light. He knew that I wasn't just some guy coming up there to see him. Well, I guess he wanted to see how far we'll go. I mean, but he never opened his mouth and said a word. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:03] Sure.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:11:03] I tell you he never opened up his mouth and said a word. Every time I used to go up there, I see him. He was always nice. He was always a gentleman, I got to tell you the truth. He was a bouncer up there. I used to walk in. They didn't bother checking me. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:14] That makes sense. I mean, it doesn't — he's got bigger fish to fry than trying to pick fights with organized crime. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:11:19] Well, he didn't know, but like all this is going in my book, book two that I'm doing now. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:23] Yeah, and I'm excited to read that. I read book one, we'll link it up in the show notes. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:11:27] Forget about book one. I'm going to add more stories to it. I took it away from the publisher that I was at. And some publishers from L.A. want it, and they want me to put more stories. So we pulled it off the shelf, but I believe we can go to the printer or whoever, and you can get copies of the book. I'm going to put seven more episodes in it and they want to make the book bigger and they want to do a book tour, book signings, and everywhere. The other company that I had; they've got no guts. They didn't do anything. So they were a lot of nonsense, so I said, "You know what I want out of the contract." They were nice about it. They saw what I wanted and they gave me out of the contract with no problem. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:01] Nice. I see why there's room for more. I think I read the whole book and like three hours. It is very short. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:12:06] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:06] So there's room for more. I want to go back to when you were a kid. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:12:09] Yeah. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:10] You had your uncles, they had their, I guess, fake jobs that they were loansharking, working for the Black Hand or the mafia. I assume your parents didn't want the gangster life for you, right? I mean, they wanted something different for you, but you were kind of getting in trouble. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:12:23] My father had three brothers. My Uncle Joe, my Uncle Nino, my Uncle Sal. They're all involved in something. All right. Now, my father, as far as I knew, he was a longshoreman. He went to work down the piers. He never wanted me to get involved with anything, but my uncles would come over to the house, especially my Uncle Sal because he was my godfather. He was the youngest one. He was into everything, shylock, and book. You name it. He did it. There was no problem. My Uncle Nino, he handled all the swag that was on the pier. My Uncle Joe was a shylock. 

[00:12:51] But these men, you never knew what they did. They all got up every morning and went down to the piers. They went down to the piers. They actually went to work and they gave my dad their business on the side. But they'd come to the house. And then O'Neil comes — Uncle O'Neil used to come to the house, Frank Costello, Carmine Galante and all of them. And you see them all with the rings, the money, wads of cash, like these hundred dollars. I want to do what you do. And that's how things started coming around. I didn't want to go to school. I didn't want to work for a living. I wanted to do what they were doing. That's where the money was. 

[00:13:21] They would come on Baltic Street, where my grandfather had the house. They double-parked. The cops never bothered them. They never got — they left it there for hours, double parked, four or five cars, and came into the house to see my father and my grandfather but the cops never gave them a ticket, not even one. They never gave him a ticket. The sanitation guys used to come up in the block. They couldn't pass with the truck. They'd back down the block and go away. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:41] Oh man. Yeah. So that appealed to you as a young guy, obviously just to see the power that they had without even saying anything. Yeah.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:13:48] Definitely. Definitely. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:49] Now, you got in trouble at school quite a bit. Were you doing that for fun? Or was it like, "If I piss off everyone enough, they'll just kick me out and I'll get my way and work with my uncles"?

Anthony Raimondi: [00:13:59] No, I didn't like going to school. I didn't like being in school. I always got into trouble for one reason or another. I don't understand why, but I always got in trouble for something. Trouble always found me when I was in school. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:08] Tell me about the kid who kept pricking you with the little pin. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:14:10] Ah, Raymond. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:11] Yeah, you still remember his name.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:14:13] And Mr. Ciserillo. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:15] Oh man.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:14:15] He and his brother, Anthony, went to St. Augustus at school. They used to call his brother Nini. He was a good-looking kid. Raymond was tall, macho-looking kid. The two brothers always thought of who the frig they were. So he's sitting behind me in class and he was sticking me with a pin and Sister Ann Michelle was my nun and she didn't like me. We used to call her Swinging Champ because she used to hit you with an open hand like this, knock you out of your seat. Yeah, she was nuts. Every time I turned around to say something to Raymond. "Raimondi, back in the room with the books." I had to stand up all day carrying 40 pounds of frequent books all day long, go home for lunch, come back and do the same thing.

[00:14:47] So at St. Augustus you have to wear a white shirt. So I come home one day and my mother says, "What's that on the back of your shirt." "I don't know. What's on the back of my shirt?" She goes, "It looks like blood." I take the shirt off and they look at the t-shirt underneath. There was blood. "I don't know what happened. I don't know how it happened." First, my father goes like this, "Come here." I knew he had that look and he goes, "What's going on?" And I said, "Pop, listen, this freaking kid, Raymond Ciserillo. He keeps sticking me with a pin or something. And every time I turned around — I wanted to turn him around. I wanted to hit him. She turns around, "Raimondi in the back of the classroom. Carry all of the books."

[00:15:17] My father says — gives me a pocket knife about this big. He goes, "Next time he sticks you with a pin," and I tell you my father's exact words. He goes, "Stab him in the f*cking eye with this knife." I looked at my father. He says, "Don't worry about getting in trouble. Don't worry about Sister Ann Michelle." He goes, "You stab him in his eyes." He goes, "I don't care what they do. That's okay." I took the knife.

[00:15:35] Sure enough the next day, Raymond with the pin day, I asked him to stop. Stop! Stop! I opened up the knife. He put his arm. Of course, I stuck him right here and I ripped open his whole arm. Sister Ann Michelle almost took about 10 heart attacks. There's bloodshot all over, blood, all over the place. They had rag wrapped his arm to stop it from bleeding. This guy had about 70, 80, 90 stitches, he had going down his arm. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:55] Oh my God.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:15:56] Cops came. They grabbed me. Okay. My father, my uncles go up to the precinct. I walked out. The next day, I'm back in school. Sister Ann Michelle looked at me, but I tell you one thing, I never stood in the back of the class and no more books. She never bothered me after that. And I knew —that's when you knew they had something.

[00:16:13] Now, what happened? They were going to press charges on me because at that time you could press charges. So somebody went to talk to them. They said, "No, we're pressing charges." "Sure? You know what you're doing?" "Yeah." Okay, my cousin, Mac, my Uncle Sal, my father was there, and Meyer was around at the time. They went to their house, knocked on the door, and you know what? They kicked the door in. They were sitting down, having their dinner. They walked in. My uncle put the gun down the father's throat. Turned around and told him, "You press charges. We come back to kill your whole family."

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:42] Oomph.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:16:42] "Drop the charges. Don't press no charges. Go about living your life. This kid gets picked up. Guess what?" He goes, he mentioned your sons and your wife, "I'll kill everybody in the family here. Understand?" and they walked out. The next day, I got a call. Go back to the precinct charges are dropped. Okay. I went back to school. I saw the brother, Anthony. He kept away from me. He seriously kept away from me. And then when Raymond came out of the hospital, he was able to go back to school. I was in the front and they had him sitting on the other side, all the way in the back. Because I told him, I said, "Next time you do it, I'll stab you in the eye with a pencil."

[00:17:17] You know, a guy sticking in the same spot all the time with the pin. I don't care how big or small you are. Do that all day long. You see what happened? He is still lucky. Let's put it that way. That's all he got. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:26] I mean, I think even today that's like a cheap lesson. I mean, it sounds like he had a nasty gash on his arm and obviously, his parents got really scared but —

Anthony Raimondi: [00:17:33] Oh no, this was no gash. His arm was ripped off.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:35] Yeah.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:17:35] This was no gash. This was ripped open, 70 stitches. It's ripped open.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:38] I mean, if I'm stabbing somebody, I feel like you deserve to get your ass kicked. Look, I'm sure it's a — legally, it's an overreaction, but I mean, nowadays you're lucky if you don't get killed first doing something horrible like that, stabbing somebody with a pin. I don't know what that kid was thinking. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:17:54] Well, he thought who the hell he was, even his brothers. They thought they were two tough guys, but they were two brothers in the school together. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:59] Got it.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:17:59] So they thought they were tough guys. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:01] Did you end up graduating from high school or did you leave school early? 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:18:04] I graduated from grammar school. No, high school, I didn't graduate from. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:06] Do you ever see those guys around? I mean they probably grew up in the same area as you? 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:18:10] No, they moved out. The Ciserillos moved away. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:12] Oh, okay. Yeah. Like for stories like this, some of the kids that probably were the — that I was the worst to and that were the worst to me in elementary school are some of my closest friends now because kids do stupid shit all the time.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:18:23] Oh no, I didn't want to be close with these kids even if they want to be friends right now. I got nothing to do with them. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:27] Yikes. That's a mess. Your uncle said something really interesting. Like your parents said stay away from — you know, look, your uncles are into some bad stuff. You can hang out with them, but don't become like them, but it sounds like your uncles eventually convinced your dad like, "Look, he's going to get in worse trouble if we're not around, because —"

Anthony Raimondi: [00:18:42] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:42] "— you're trying to force him into the good guy track. He's obviously not in that track. Let them go with us so that he doesn't just go off the rails entirely. Am I right?

Anthony Raimondi: [00:18:50] Yeah. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:51] Yeah. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:18:51] My Uncle Frank had a house on Dean Street in Brooklyn. He was in the cigarette business. He was what they called the cigarette bootlegger. A 40-foot trailer would come up to the block, load it with cigarettes. They used to load them into this house that he had. I kept getting into trouble. So my father and my Uncle Sal and my Uncle Frank, they took me to the house on Dean Street and they said, "You got to see cousin Mac." I said, "Okay." So I walked in. I see Mac, "Hey, cousin Mac, wait a minute." He cracked me across the side of my face. I thought my head was spinning like a freaking top. Pulled out a gun and he went to me, "Would you think you could do this?" He put the gun, he went to put it in my mouth, halfway down. He says, "You think you could blow some, kill somebody," and so on and he went on a tirade with this. "I don't. If I can't be like you guys, you might as well pull the trigger. This is what I wanted to do." He hit me again after that. He went outside the room. He spoke with my father, my uncles, and they say, "Put them with him." If I would've went with another family or another crew of guys or whatever you want to call it or something could have happened to me, at least over here, I'm being a watch. It's all family here, my cousin, uncles, everybody. We're all family over here. We watch out for each other and that's how it started. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:53] Yeah. That makes sense because if you just got involved with some dumb ass, like drug dealer punks, you could have ended up on the chopping block and they would have not been around to keep an eye on. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:20:02] Exactly. They would have walked away. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:03] Yeah.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:20:04] Yeah, exactly.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:05] Your uncle was no ordinary. I mean, he's one of the most famous — 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:20:08] Oh, Uncle Lucky 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:09] Uncle Lucky, yeah. So he took you everywhere from what it sounds like. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:20:12] When he was in the United States, every time he went someplace, I was the only baby. He would come in and drag me, but see, here's the catch when everybody doesn't — I'm going to explain something to you. Uncle Lucky was my grandmother's, my father's mother, that was her half-brother. Antonio, who was my great-grandfather, was Lucky's father, he had an affair with a woman and they had Nancy, which was my grandmother. He had Mary, they had Auntie Thumbelina, and they had Auntie Lucy. All right. There were three sisters. My grandmother, Nancy, she was Lucky's half-sister. Lucky introduced her and my grandfather to each other. And they got married, but Lucky was my grandfather's cousin. My father's five [00:20:52] was his cousin. So now he became like his brother-in-law. Then Great Uncle Ralph, who was my father's uncle, he married Aunt Lucy and Sean, and so forth.

[00:21:00] Now, everybody talks about, "Oh, they deported him. He never came back to the United States," a lot of bullshit. They deported him. When he knew my mother was giving birth to me, he came to the United States. And he was in the hospital when my mother gave birth to me and he always came in four times a year, he came in either on plane or boat or whatever, they never stopped them from coming back in here. Every time he came in. Where did he come? Right to the house on Baltic Street. Who did he take with him? I'm halfway sleeping. I'm just getting up to, and he's dragging me out of the house. Get dressed, dragging me out of the house, throw me in the car with him, to sustain the colony. He took me everywhere with him every time he came into the United States.

[00:21:36] Like I met this woman, Barbara, Barbara Maggio or Maggiore or something like that. Nice woman. She's out in L.A. She does books. She wrote a book on her father, I think, The Odd Man Out. It's called or something like that because he was in the ring as a referee. She goes, "I got this guy. He's Lucky’s illegitimate son." "So tell him to get in touch with me. I'm his cousin." "Oh no, he doesn't want to get in touch with you." "He's my cousin. Why wouldn't he want to get in touch with me?" "Well, you know, he says that Lucky, your Uncle Lucky. He was a hundred years old when he died." I said, "What?" She goes, "Yeah, he's saying that he was a hundred years old, that Lucky never died. They moved them upstate New York, he got plastic surgery." I said, "Who's this guy?" I said, "This guy's a bullshitter. Who's this guy?" First of all, let me explain two things here. One, my Uncle Lucky hated the cold when he was in the hotel and he would come out — he had a car. Had to be heated. He had a guy standing outside the door. There was a guy out there when he came and he just went right out quick and into the car. That's number one, he hated the cold. Number two, me and my father and everybody were with him in Naples when he took a heart attack and died. So unless my uncle faked and held his breath for three or four days in that coffin and in the tomb, he's the greatest magician ever.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:43] Yeah.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:22:43] Like this guy's full of nonsense. “I'm your cousin. Why wouldn't you want to get in touch with me?” 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:47] This is Lucky Luciano, for those of you who haven't figured it out. And he's one of the most famous gangsters. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:22:51] Our real name is Lucania, not Luciano. It’s Lucania. I had an argument with some moron on, I think, it was called the Scarpa Crew or, you know, one of the clubs that they put on the Internet, like organized crime clubs and all this, the guy's name was Nev Morgan telling me about Uncle Lucky. He goes, "Oh, he used to use that name Luciano as a disguised name. He made it up." No, you're a moron. He didn't make it up. When they came here from Italy, they came to Ellis Island; instead of the guys writing the name Lucania, they wrote Luciano, so he used it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:26] That happened to a lot of names.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:23:27] Just like they called him Charlie.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:28] Yeah. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:23:28] Charlie was his nickname, but it wasn't his real name. His real name is Salvatore Lucania.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:36] The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest Anthony Raimondi. We'll be right back. 

[00:23:41] Now, there are more ways to be a team with Microsoft Teams. Bring everyone together in a new virtual room, collaborate live, building ideas on the same page, and see more of your team on the screen at once. Learn more at microsoft.com/teams.

[00:23:55] And now back to Anthony Raimondi on The Jordan Harbinger Show.

[00:24:01] You almost died as a kid. Tell me about that. It led to kind of a — I don't want to say epiphany, but a special moment in your life. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:24:06] Oh, you mean with the plane crash.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:24:08] Yeah.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:24:09] In 1960, it was December 16th, 1960. There was a plane — what happened was there were two jet planes. They collided over Staten Island. One of them crashed Staten Island in Miller Field. Everybody died. The other jet made it into Brooklyn. What happened? We heard the explosion. I was sitting by the window. I was the only one sitting by the window because I was the bad kid. So Miss Pickerelli said, "By the window, Raimondi, by the window." What else should I freaking do? I was sitting by the window all year, so what's another day going to do. Anyway, I'm over there and we heard the explosion, but then we heard something sounding like a rocket coming through the air. And she's over here, "Now, everybody under the desks. Get down." Me, I'm over by the window. I want to see what's going on. This jet plane came through the block. 

[00:24:55] Now, they interviewed me on the 50th anniversary. Three different majors — Rosanna Scotto interviewed me, Channel 11 interviewed me, 1010 Wins interviewed me because everybody they interviewed had these weird stories. And they saw that I was in school and I told them what happened. The plane didn't come shooting through the block. It didn't crash. It didn't do nothing like that. It glided like this through the block. Now, what happened? I was by the window. What was left in a wing hit the window. All the glass went in my face. Nothing went in my eye. I had glass all up in here, around here, on here, over here, all glass, nothing went in my eye.

[00:25:30] The doctor said that alone was a miracle, but the plane came like this. It glided. When the plane went down, it hit like that on the ground. They have Seventh Avenue and the flap was here. It hit. Boom! It dropped, okay. A couple of seconds after that, it exploded from the gasoline that was leaking out of it, the jet fuel. When they took me out of the school where they would take me to the hospital, the jet fuel was running down the Sterling Place on fire. It was melting the snow. Now, they put me in the ambulance with the kid, um, I don't know if it's Bolton or Spitzer was his name. He lived for one day, one day. This kid was the only survivor. He actually fell out of the plane onto a pile of snow. When they put me and him in the same ambulance, you couldn't tell if this kid was white, black, Puerto Rican. How this kid lived is beyond me but he died the next day. 

[00:26:17] And I told everybody, and everybody said I was crazy. I told them I've seen — first of all, I thought it was like a monk or a priest I saw on the plane. Then I'd seen a picture. I said, "That's what I've seen." "What's that?" they told me because I've seen him on the plane. Now everybody, "Ah, how could you see them on the plane? Did you look inside the plane?" I never said I've seen him inside the plane. I've seen him on top of the plane. I don't care what anybody tells me. My mother and father took me to a psychiatrist for two years, psychiatrist, psychologist. And they said one or two things. A either from the shock or whatever, I'm really in my head. I believe this is what I saw. Or he says he really saw it because when they put me in the ambulance, I've seen him walking down the block. And he just turned around and he waved at me like this, and he just went. And I kept telling everybody, "There he is. There he is." They all thought I was nuts and I just disappeared. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:05] Wow. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:27:06] And I tell everybody about it and I'll never forget it to this day. I remember — this as clear as I see you. I see him in my face, in my mind. Everybody thought I was nuts. I've seen this. I'm not kidding. I know what I saw. They could say whatever they want. I know what I saw. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:19] So you saw the Angel of Death and he waved at you. I mean that — 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:27:22] He just waved goodbye to me when he was going down the block, he waved goodbye to me. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:25] That must have scared the shit out of you, right? 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:27:27] No, I kept telling everybody. There he is. He's over there. There he is. And it wasn't that — he wasn't a skeleton face, no. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:34] Oh okay.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:27:34] What it looked like was that his face is like a very tight facelift. Everything was pulled tight so that you could see the outline of the bones and everything, but he had skin over it. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:43] So you obviously remember that for your entire life. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:27:46] I'll never forget that. I will never forget that or the plane crash. When I was seeing those people, literally on fire, hanging out, and some of them out of the windows and stuff 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:54] That is deeply traumatizing for anyone, let alone a kid. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:27:57] They would find the body parts for about five, six years after. They were found like skeleton hands or whatever, all on the roofs and all over the place. And there was a guy on the corner of Seventh Avenue. He used to sell Christmas trees and part of the plane crashed over there. They never found his body. They think he was completely incinerated, this guy. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:15] Did you ever see Death after that? I mean —

Anthony Raimondi: [00:28:17] Yeah. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:17] — you went to Vietnam and everything. Yeah. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:28:19] When the scout was stabbing me, I'd seen him behind the scout. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:22] In Vietnam — we'll get to that a little bit. I just wondered about the death connection there. Yeah, because somebody tried to kill you in Vietnam as well. I mean, you've come close a few times. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:28:30] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:30] And the reason I brought this up because after that, the doctors, your family, everyone said, "Hey, you're a lucky kid. Just like your uncle." And it seems like that kind of sealed it. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:28:38] Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely, it did. No glass went into my eye at all. I mean, it went up around here, in here, over and under here, some over here, nothing in the eye or on the lid of anything, nothing, nothing at all. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:52] How did you end up getting into the family business after that? I mean, it seems like a jump from, okay, you're hanging out with your uncles to now you're in the business doing stuff. You're not just walking around after them. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:29:04] They took me down to the Diplomat on Carroll and Third, where I met Joe Colombo and everybody said, "What's this kid doing here?" So they turned around and my cousin Mac says, "This is Frankie's kid." So Tom DiBella and all of them said, "This is Frankie's kid." They said, "No problem. Let him stay." I was cleaning up the Diplomat, you know, mopping the floor, sweeping, and stuff like that. Then Joe would give me some envelopes. He would tell me, "Go up to Fifth Avenue where Scappy's club is. Bring these envelopes up there." I'd walk up to the block. I'd bring the envelopes. Scappy gave me an envelope and I'd walk it back down to Fifth Avenue. 

[00:29:34] As I started getting older, then they'd say go over to Fifth Avenue. And I'm walking. I don't have a cost. So I'm walking. I walk up to Carroll Street, walk across Fifth Avenue, Seventh Street, and Fifth Avenue, dropping off envelopes and picking up envelopes. I'm going back down to Carroll Street. Then one day I'm going to make a pickup on, I think, it was Third Street or Fifth Street, detectives grabbed me. Two detectives come out. They grabbed me; they had the money on me. I had the numbers sheets. I had everything on me right at the Bergen Street station house. And they threw me and lockup. Never told me to call a lawyer. Never said anything. All they're telling me is, "You never going to see your family again, we're going to send you away for a hundred years." And I'm looking at them and I didn't say a word. Well, they would tell me don't open your mouth. Don't say anything. 

[00:30:16] I'm sitting there. They threw me in the cage, where all adults — I was about, I was 15 going on 16. They threw me in the cage, where all adults are, which they weren't supposed to. In the cage, everybody's looking at me and I'm looking at them. And I figured something was going to happen. But there were two guys on the other side of the cage and I looked at them and I recognized them from the neighbor. And they just went like this to me. They nodded to me and I went like that to them. When everybody's seen that they all backed up. These two guys were somebody. They were made guys, but they had gotten picked up for some bullshit, whatever it was, but they were going out. When these guys saw these guys knew me, everybody goes, they said, "Uh-oh, no problem." They just backed up. 

[00:30:56] Now, from the story I got down to the Diplomat. Everybody's saying, "Where am I? I didn't go for the other drops. I didn't make the pickups and this and that." So everybody by saying maybe something happened to him. Maybe he got shot and killed. Maybe somebody mugged them or whatever. And they had this one guy fat Andy who — me and him never got along. He goes, "Maybe Anthony took off with the money." My cousin Mac turned around and told him, "Don't ever say that again?" He said, "I'll blow your f*cking head off." He goes, "This kid isn’t going to run away with the money." 

[00:31:21] So what they'd done, they got in touch with Abraham Gritz. Abraham Gritz had a bail bonds business, and he was a lawyer. He goes, "See if you could find out what happened." Sure enough, he comes back. He's kind of back at Bergen Street station, locked up. They go down. I was sitting there and hear, "Who the f*ck is in charge here?" Oh, I know the voice and I turn around and I see Joe Colombo. "You get him out right now," at the captain, and he's yelling. He goes, "What the f*ck is locking up my man? That's my f*ck — get him the f*ck out of here now." Captain went, opened up the gate, and took me out. He goes, "Where's the detective?" He goes, "You keep the shit. I'm going to have you on the f*cking breadline." He tells him. The detectives come out. He reamed them — forget about what he's done with them.

[00:32:00] He said, "I want — where's the money? Where are the slips and everything?" So the detective goes to give it to Joe. He goes, "No, you hand it to him. You took it from him." Like this with the hand, "You f*cking hand it to him. Otherwise, you'll be in up in the hall tonight." This detective was Boston. He didn't want to hear — he handed me that. Everybody just put a smart gun. I was waving to say something. Joe would have cut his head off. We leave. The two detectives, he had something done with them that they had to beat that they didn't really want to go on. Came back and he said, "Are you all right?" I said, "Yeah, I'm fine." "All right, finish your route." I went and finished my route and they came back down to the Diplomat with it and I had my first drink. They gave me a scotch and soda. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:37] I find it a little ironic that the club full of like gangster guys that are using force to get everything done is called the Diplomat. This occurred to me. It's like a little tongue-in-cheek joke.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:32:46] I tell you why because there was a hotel in Miami called the Diplomat Hotel where all the guys used to stay. So the bar that was on Carroll and Third, they called it the Diplomat Lounge. We had a charter for it at one time, this would be a charter. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:59] It’s like the aristocrats, right?  

Anthony Raimondi: [00:33:02] Yeah. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:33:03] So by 18, you're managing this spot, which also is —

Anthony Raimondi: [00:33:06] No, no, no, no. 18, I was already in the service at 18. No, no, no, no. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:33:10] This is 16 though, right? You're managing the cadaver club, which also sounds like the most mafia thing ever. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:33:15] Cadabra, not cadaver. Cadabra. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:33:17] Oh Cadabra. I thought it was cadaver club —

Anthony Raimondi: [00:33:19] No, no, no, no.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:33:20] Like a dead body. Okay. That makes a little bit more sense. Okay. All right, I misheard that one. I thought, "No way they name it, the cadaver club." That's also a good name though. It's just not — not as upbeat. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:33:32] Right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:33:32] So this guy comes in there looking for you or looking for something. And this is like the first time you get attacked by I guess, a full-grown man, huh? 

[00:33:40] Yeah. Joe gave me the spot down there. He says, "Come here, they're going to give you the numbers money every night, and to receipts, the numbers. You'll get the shylock money, the pickups, the numbers money, the sports money. So just bring it downtown. When you're done if you want to go back to the club or wherever you want to go hang out." And he says, "But be here tomorrow morning." Because every morning I had to be back at the Diplomat. Okay. So I'm in the club and I'm putting many envelopes together.

[00:34:04] This guy walks into the bartender. He says, "Who's taking all the action here? Who's in charge?" So I went up, I said, "Excuse me. Can I help you? You know, anything goes to me. I got them done over here. He said, “Yeah. I want to talk to you." He pulled out a gun. I still got the first scar right over here where he hit me with the gun. That's the first scar.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:20] Above your eye.

[00:34:21] Anthony Raimondi: [00:34:21] Right above my eye. This guy beat me so bad. I don't even know how I made it back downtown. All I remember, I was crawling out of the place. Literally, I was crawling out of the place and I remember him saying, "You come back here, your mother is going to have a closed coffin for you. I'm going to blow your f*cking head off. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that." I made it out of there and my cousin had given me an Electra 225 limited, big Buick. I didn't even have a license yet, but I knew how to drive. I went from Third Avenue between 85th and 86th street and Bay Ridge all the way back downtown to Carroll Street. I made the turn, to like make a U-turn. I crashed into the wall of Diplomat. Everybody comes running out. 

[00:34:58] Now, they see the car. They looked at me, they think I got shot because I'm bleeding all over the place. They get me to Methodist Hospital and Dr. Leo was there. He examined me and he goes, "He caught a bad beating." So my cousin said to me, he goes, "What happened?" I said, "Look. This is what happened. I don't know who this guy is." I told him what happened. He goes, "Okay." He says, "Take care of him." So they were taking care of me in the hospital. My cousin was coming up, everybody was coming up to see me, my uncle — my father was looking for blood. My father wanted the guy dead. Joe Colombo told him, "Frankie, I take care of him." 

[00:35:29] My cousin takes me home from the hospital about five, six days later. He says, "Rest up for a couple more days and I'll bring it down to Third Avenue." About three, four days later, he goes, "Come on, Joe wants to see you." They told me who this guy was. This Sally Burns. He was a cousin to the Granello's. They were all named either Frankie Burns, Sally Burns, and Jimmy Burns, their last name was Granello, but then they had cousins who didn't even have the same last name as them but being they were cousins, they adopted the name, Frankie Burns and Granello. But there were a bunch of perverts. That's what they were. Seriously, they all were. They all went after young girls and you couldn't — let's put it this way, when you killed one of them, you did the world a favor. They're all f*cking low lives, but they were big earners. There were big earners. See that's to catch. If you're a big earner, you could be the biggest lowlife in the world. Nothing's going to happen to you. But when push comes to shove and the commission says, "This guy got to go. I don't care how much he earns. This guy's going." He's got to know.

[00:36:21] Joe Colombo tells me, he says, "Listen, I'm going to take care of this thing with this Sally Burns." He says, "Don't worry about it." Do I appreciate it? Yeah. He goes, "Relax." We went down to Monte's Restaurant. I'm sorry. We're at Monte's Restaurant at the time. My cousin calls me over to the table. There was my cousin, Scabby, Gerry Lang, Junior Persico was there, Allie Boy, Little Vincent. They're all sitting there. And he says, "Listen, if Joe Colombo handles this for you, that means you belong to Joe Colombo. You can't do nothing without his say. And if he doesn't want you made, you aren’t getting made." I said, "Okay. So what do I do?" They said, "If you handle it, then that means you belong here with us. You aren’t his man. You belong here with us. When it's your time to get straightened out, you'll get straightened out." So I said, "All right, so now I'm saying I got to handle this myself." I said, "All right."

[00:37:05] So I'm thinking just let me go see Joey D and Sally D. They had a bar on Union Street and Third Avenue. I went and saw Joey D. I said, "Joey, how have you been?" He goes, "I heard what happened." I said, "Yeah, I know, some guy screwed me up, but I'm doing better." He goes, "What do you want?" Now, we're at the same age. I said, "I want to get a gun." He goes, "For what?" I said, "I'm going to take it with me when I go down to Third Avenue. I got to scare this guy with it." He goes, "All right, come on." Went into the bar that his family-owned, and we went to the basement. Then he had a sub-basement, all weapons. His family was gun runners. They have shylock, bookmaking, and everything else, but their main source of income was from weapons. I mean, if you want a B-52 bomb, hit them, I tell you, they're there in three days. They'll be there at your doorstep. I mean, they have bazooka, they have hand grenades. I mean, they had stuff like you'd never seen. 

[00:37:49] He goes, "Pick out something." I said, "I like that gun. What is it?" He goes, ".380 Beretta from Italy, Pietro model, 84 from Italy, 13 shots in the clip, and one in the pipe." I said, "Well, how do you shoot this?" He goes, "Come on." They have a range down there. Loaded it, showed me the safety and everything on it. Showed me to target and I'm still shooting. I'm shooting. He's looking at me and I'm shooting and everything, or putting more bullets in the clips, shooting. I hit, I think, it was about 48 bulls’ eyes out of 50 shots. Never fired a gun. It was the first time I had fired a gun in my life. Joey goes to me. He goes, "You never find a gun?" I said, "Joey, no, we know each other since we're babies. We're always hanging out together. You know if I shot a gun, you know, I shot a gun. I never f*cking fired a gun. This is my first time." "Because let me tell you something for somebody who'd never shot a gun, you're sure a natural." My Uncle Sal's coming over. So Sal comes over and they showed him what happened. He says, "You did this?" "Yeah. I mean, I never shot a gun." "Gun is a gift. Take it." They gave me a box of ammunition. It's a gift. "I got it. I'm ready to pay for it." "Nah." All right. Well, he told me to be careful when you go down there. They told me. 

[00:38:49] I got it in a brown paper bag. I walked from Union Street back over to Carroll Street. I got in the car with my cousin. He goes, "What's in the bag?" I opened it and pulled it up. "Bang!" "What are you f*cking nuts?" He goes, "You aren’t got no permit for this. What's the —? Put it back in the bag. What are doing with this?" I said, "Well when I go down to the club on Friday, I'm taking them with me." "For what?" "Maybe I can scare the guy." My cousin put a smirk on his face. I think he knew what was going to happen. I think my cousin knew because he'd put a smirk on his face. And now when I think back about it, you know, years later, it's like, "Yeah, you're going to scare him, you going to pop this guy." 

[00:39:22] I go home. I'm at the house and I'm practicing. I'm loading it. I'm unloading it, pulling the action back, safety's on and off. I had this gun in my sleep. I could do this gun blindfolded. Friday comes, I'm at the Diplomat. I go back home, get changed, put my clothes on everything. I get the gun. I load the gun up, stick it in my waistband. I go down to Monte's Restaurant and I leave the gun in the car. "Excuse me." Everybody goes, "What are you doing here?" I must have gotten there at about eight o'clock. He says, "What are you doing?" I said, "Nothing." He said, "I thought you were going down to Third." I said, "Yeah, I'm going to go down to the club in a little while, but I just wanted to come down and see you, to let you know I'm going down." So my cousin goes, "Okay. I see you when you get back." I said, "All right." So he said, "If you get back late, then we'll see you in the morning. It's okay." "Fine." 

[00:40:05] I take off with my cousin's car and I drive to Third Avenue. And I parked right in front of the place. There's parking space. When I got the gun on my waistband, I went in and Dukie, the bartender, he goes, "What are you doing here?" I say, "I want to see this kid, Sally Burns. I want to straighten him." He goes, "Anthony, this guy is f*cking nuts. He has shaken down everybody in the club. He's robbing the registers. We can't control him. This guy will kill you." I say, "Don't worry about it. Don't worry about him. I want to talk to him. I figured I would really talk to him." 

[00:40:32] Now at this club, when you walk in, you walk in this way. The bar was on the left-hand side and on the right, you got like a ledge that you can put your drinks on, but the bottom went straight about maybe 40 feet. Then it turned to the left, like an L shape. And there was a dance floor. Like, to your right, there was a dance — when you made the turn like this, there was a dance floor to your right and there were all tables and chairs. And then it turned down again to the other door. When I walked through and I turned around, I'd seen him, he had his back to me. And he was talking to this girl Karen from school. I will never forget Karen. The girl could stop at the atomic bomb in mid blast, believe me when I tell you. She's talking to him. The music was down and I hear her tell him, she says, "Anthony's behind you." For whatever reason before she even said — I don't know why I had the gun in my hand. This guy gets up. "What did I tell you? You dirty mother f*cker. Your mother is going to have a closed coffin. I'm going to blow your f*cking head.' He opened his jacket and I'd seen the gun in his waistband. He puts his hand on it. I just picked up my hand like this and empty the whole clip into him. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:24] Wow. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:41:24] I didn't think about it. I did not. I'm going to tell you now. I did not think about it. The only thing I'd done — people ran out of the place. That's for sure. They were running all over. I got into the car. I drove. I remember something telling me, "Remember what your cousin said, get rid of the gun." I stopped on Hamilton Avenue. I went up to Gowanus Canal. Took the gun apart, threw the whole thing in the canal. I'm back in the car, took off. I go down to Carroll and Third. I go into the Diplomat. I see Joe Blub, the bartender. I say, "Where's everybody?" He goes, "Down at Monte's." I go down. Everybody goes, "What are you doing here?" And so I went out to Bay Ridge and saw that Sally Burns." My cousin says, "What happened?" And I told him what happened, you know, he pulled out — he got up, he was going to kill me, blah, blah." "And then what happened?" I say, "Well, I shot him." So they all looked at me. "What do you mean you shot him?" "I shot him," I said, "I emptied the whole clip into him." He said, "Did you got rid of the gun?" "It's in the canal." 

[00:42:12] So Joe tells Little Vincent, he goes, "Go down to the place and see what you can find out." The time Vincent left and he came back was within an hour. He comes in, Vincent, and he says, "The guy has no head. It's just the body. He shot him in the head. He blew his whole f*cking head off." He goes, "The bodies on the floor. There's no —" He goes, "If you look at the body, whatever and you look for the head, you can't tell if it was a man or woman. He’s got no head. It's gone. It's like mushy. You can't tell what the hell it is.” It really didn't faze me. It didn't register, maybe — it didn't register. Joe Colombo goes, "Give him a drink." He gives me a 7 and 7. He goes, "Look at his kid. He just kills somebody and he's sitting there, calm as a cucumber. "Oh, what happened?" "The guy went to hurt me. I killed him. I know it must be f*cking hell. What's the big freaking deal?" Oh, they were happy with me, man. I was like their golden child. They forget about it after that. 

[00:42:57] They sent me up to the farm that night. I came back. In December, I started doing my business. January, two detectives come in, they pick me up, and they grabbed me for the murder of Salvatore Burns. So I'm looking at everybody and saying, "Who the f*ck is Salvatore Burns?" They said, "That guy is Sally Burns." Boom! They take me away. He gets Abraham Gritz. Abraham Gritz — now this is going to give you a laugh. He makes a deal with the DA. I'm going to get charged with possession of an unlicensed gun and firing a gun in the city limits, a total of a year and a half, you got to do it. Now, everybody says, "How did you get that?" And I'm going to tell you why. There is a stipulation, the state, the city and the Feds have what's called the Youth Offenders Act up to the age of 24, anything you do, you're considered as a youth offender. You could only get a minimal amount of time. They can't prosecute or give you a big time. They can't. As long as you're 24, once you hit 25, that's it you're an adult. Then they could charge you with everything. So the guy made it, he says, "Listen, Anthony. Yeah, a year and a half, what the hell?" I said, "Yeah. Okay." So I was going in, I got, my cousin was going to go away for a case that he had, I'd be back ahead of him. So he said, "Just keep on running the business." 

[00:44:09] A couple of months later, we're going down to take the plea. I think that stuff, why not? A year and a half, you can't go on. We drove down Atlantic Avenue and we turned on to Boerum Place. The Boerum Place goes like to the courthouses and it goes to the probation department, under the bridge, four cars came down on this, like this. We were in Gerry Lang's Lincoln. He had this big ass Lincoln. They came down on us like this, four cars. Guys coming out, two, three, four guys, each cop pulling us all out of the car. Joe Colombo was screaming at them. I'm on the floor. "We got him. We got him." "You got who?" "We got you." "What the f*ck are you talking about?" "We're FBI." They got me for — now here's the kicker, not murder, nothing like that. The civil rights violation of Salvatore Granello.

[00:44:54] Now the civil rights violation, I do it if it was like a white-on-black crime, black-on-white, a civil rights violation means I caused his death. So being that I caused death, one, he can never grow old. He can't go to work. He can't retire. He can't live with his wife. He can't see his children grow up. He can't see his grandchildren. He can't go on vacation. He can't get laid in plain English on and on and on and on, it goes. And I'm looking and I say, "Are you kidding me or what?" Sentence was 99 years. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:23] Oh, wow. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:45:23] Yeah. The Youth Offenders Act doesn't phase that because it's a civil rights violation.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:28] Right.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:45:28] Okay. So I make the bail and Abraham Gritz calls, "Listen," he goes like that. "I bring the guy in on this." William Kunstler — he brings in. I see him as he's walking into the Diplomat and I'll never forget the way he looks with the glasses on the top with the eyebrow but this guy was a genius. He comes in. He goes, "What's the plan?" He goes, "We're going to go to trial." He goes, "You're going to get convicted." "So I'm going to get convicted. So what are we going to trial for?" He goes, "Let's take a plea. Listen to me, if you take a plea. So there's nothing I could do for you." He goes, "You got to do 33 years before you're eligible for parole and it doesn't mean they're going to give it to you."

Jordan Harbinger: [00:46:00] Yikes.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:46:00] He says, "But if we go to trial and you get a conviction — because I got a rabbit in the hat I could pull out." He goes, "I could take care of this." Sure enough, like he said, we went to trial. Boom! I got convicted. They waste no freaking time. Judge sentenced me to 99 years. That night they didn't wait for the next day. That night they sent me to Atlanta. I was on the bus going to Atlanta from the bus to the plane and led to the penitentiary. They just didn't like me. They put on the record as organized crime. So I'm looking at them, they say, "We'll see it tomorrow." 

Next day came, they got me in the hole. That's solitary confinement because I'm a new fish in there. Who comes walking in? Abraham Gritz, William Kunstler. The guy goes to me, "How'd you like to get out of here?" "I'll kill the whole f*cking place if I got to get out of here. What are you kidding me?" He goes, "You have to join the service and you're going to go to the Southeast Asian Conference." "Yeah, sure. Why not? What do I get?" He goes, "Sign the papers." He goes, "The MPs will be here tomorrow to pick you up." 

[00:46:57] The next day, MPs came. They're very nice. These guys were huge. I'm talking like six, six. I'm talking about pure muscle, these guys, I mean, really. These guys may go to the ring and may look small. Nicest guys you'd ever want to meet. Guys came for me, put the cuffs on me. "Would you please come this way?" They get me into a wagon. You had a driver and then you had an escort and then these two guys. There was one guy in here, me, and the other guy. And it was a funny thing. They argue about eating and they're shaking me back and forth in the car. And I go, "Really? What the f*ck?" I told the guys. "Look," they said, "We found a place to go and eat." I say, "Okay, guys, you got to do me one favor." "What do you want?" I said, "If you decide to go here and you decide to go there, one of you just please un-handcuff me." He says, "Why?" "Because you're going to split me in two." They started laughing. The guy says, "Listen, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to take the cuffs off you. I'm going to take the chains. You're going to come in there and eat with us like regular people. So nobody looks at you. But I'm going to tell you now if you run, I will shoot you in the back and kill you." He goes, "And I will find it." "Hey, I want a good meal. I got no problem with that." 

[00:47:58] We went into the diner. I had a meal with them. "Can I go to the bathroom?" "Go ahead." I looked at him. I said, "Are you serious?" He says, "I trust you. Remember what I say." I said, "Yeah." I went in. I did my business in the bathroom, came back out. We went to go back to the car and I went like this outside the way. He said, "Don't worry about it." We got back in. We got down to Fort Benning, Georgia at first. That's where they brought me to Fort Benning in Georgia first before they transferred me to Camp Lejeune. They put me in there. Next day, I go to Camp Lejeune. That's where I met Captain Amiel Bass. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:31] This is The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Anthony Raimondi. We'll be right back. 

[00:48:36] Now there are more ways to be a team with Microsoft Teams. With together mode, you can bring everyone together in one space in the same virtual room. You can bring the power of true collaboration to your projects with whiteboard, drawing, sharing, and building ideas in real-time, all on the same page. And with a large gallery view, you can see more of your team all at once with up to 49 people on screen all at the same time. You can even raise your hand virtually so everyone can be seen and heard. When there are more ways to be together, there are more ways to be a team, learn more about all the newest Teams features at microsoft.com/teams.

[00:49:10] Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our sponsors — that's what keeps us going. That's what keeps the lights on around here. That's why I don't have to be a lawyer anymore. So please, if you love the show, go to jordanharbinger.com/deals and consider supporting somebody who supports us. And don't forget, we've got worksheets for these episodes. Those are always in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com/podcast. Now for the conclusion of part one with Anthony Raimondi. 

[00:49:36] Now, in the interest of time, and because I want to entice people to listen to the podcast, which we'll link in the show notes, The Enforcer, I will skip over some of the Vietnam stories, but suffice it to say that you got a lot of — is it safe to say you got special operations and marksman sniper training in Vietnam? Is that kind of the —? 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:49:52] Marksman sniper and sharpshooter, yeah. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:54] And the second time you saw the Angel of Death, we hinted that earlier in the show was when a North Vietnamese scout came up and —

Anthony Raimondi: [00:50:03] Stabbed me over here. Stabbed me twice over here. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:50:05] Wow. On the opposite side of your chest, from where your heart is, I guess he —

Anthony Raimondi: [00:50:08] Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:50:09] I mean, you're lucky to be here, I think with two knife wounds in that. So after that, you kind of go straight back into the family business and you've got some pretty serious problems, it's not just securities fraud. I mean, it is the next level type of stuff. What were you doing at the Vatican? 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:50:22] Well, what happened? I came home and I started doing my rackets as usual. And then what happened? My cousin Luigi Raimondi calls us up and he was a cardinal out there and he flies in. He says, "Listen, we got a deal going." I said, "What is it?" He goes, "The stocks." I say, "What do you mean stocks?" He goes, "We got a guy who counterfeited all the stocks we've been selling them all over." He says, "You're coming with us." Now, they started doing this back in 1971. This is ’75 and it's still going on. So I say, "What do you want from me?" He goes, "We'll send you the stocks. They will counterfeit it. Do you have somebody that can move us?" I say, "Yeah, I could get somebody." I got in touch with this guy, Joey P, who was in commodities, but his nephew was into regular stocks, like at Coca-Cola, AT&T, and IBM. 

[00:51:02] So I spoke with him. I went to Jersey, spoke to the old man Rio out in Jersey. He was the big boss in Jersey with all the rackets. They have a little stock market dealing out there. He got his nephew with it, Pete Martel. Then I went to Mercantile in Chicago. I saw a cousin of mine that was out there. I had it set up. I came back. I told Luigi. I said, "We got it set." He goes, "All right I'm flying back tonight. You're going to expect the package in a couple of days." They had their own jet that they came in with from the Vatican. He takes off. About three days later, I got a package about this long, this high, and this wide. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:35] That's pretty big, pretty good package.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:51:37] Yeah. It was all loaded with stocks. Thousand-dollar denomination — excuse me, hundred thousand dollars denominations, thousand dollars. I got it and I brought it to everybody and they started moving the stock and I kept getting shipment every week. Every week I was getting shipments of stocks every week.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:51] So just to clarify, they're printing off these stock certificates, somewhere in the Vatican. Unlike a — 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:51:58] No, not in the Vatican. They had forger that did it to them. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:01] Okay.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:52:01] He made a copy of the stocks that the Vatican owns.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:03] Oh, okay.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:52:04] He made a perfect forged copy and they were selling. Now, it got members — which were Antonio Ribeiro who was my cousin, Salvatore Pappalardo who was another cousin, and my favorite at that time in the stock was Paul Jacob Marcinkus. He was the head of the Vatican Bank. He was my cousin. They were all in on it, the stock forge. Stocks were going good. And then in October of 75, we got a call that Pete Martel or Pete Rayo, as he was called, got arrested and he gave up everybody. So I called up with a bunch of guys that worked close to me, that were involved, and we went right to the airport. I called up my cousins in Italy. He says, "Get down here." I got onto the plane and went to Italy. 

[00:52:42] Now, you see, everybody's, "Oh, you couldn't go to Italy," back then. I said, "Yes, you could." Because goes back then, you didn't have the security like you have now. We're talking about in the '70s. You could go to the airport and say, "Give me five tickets to Rome." "Yeah, here you go." You pay cash and you get on the plane. There was no security above you. When I used to go to Florida, I used to go to Florida, like 10 times a year. I just get the bug in my head, three o'clock in the morning, I want to go to Florida. I go to the airport. "Hey, give me a ticket to Florida." You get a ticket as you go. 

[00:53:04] So I got there. I told my cousin what happened. He put me at the Vatican Hotel and he put the rest of my guys somewhere else. So we were all separated. He found out what happened to Pete Martel, he goes by the name of Pete Rayo and Petey Matsa, they call him. He got pinched and he ratted out on everybody. I'm down in the Vatican and I'm there about maybe a week and a half, two weeks. The FBI comes in. They came in with arrest warrants for us, all of us. So my cousin tells him, "You can't take them." He goes, "This is Vatican City. We are considered a country within a country. We have no extradition. You can't touch them." The FBI went to the Italian government. The Italian government says, "We have no jurisdiction there. They're their own country." Now, the FBI comes back, "You'll never come home." "Hey, listen, pal. I got women out here. I got bars. I got clubs, guns, radios. I don't have to go back home. I can live here. Vatican City is huge." So my cousin tells me, he goes, "You want to go back home?" I say, "It would be nice but I got to feel safe. Don't worry about it." 

[00:54:05] He goes, "Where's the counterfeit stocks you got? “So he brings it up. He goes, "You're the experts." "Yeah," he goes. Now, the FBI stock had the FBI stamp on it, the counterfeit ones. He turns around and says, "They're the same one out of the Vatican vault." They get it and he comes in. He goes, "Now I want you to look at both of them. Tell me what you see." Guy looked at both stocks. He goes, "Perfect copies." But my cousin goes, "You're the expert. Let's look at them again." "Perfect. Nothing wrong with them." He turns around. He tells the FBI agent, "You better fire him and get somebody else." "Why?" He goes, "Look at the serial number. Both stocks got the same serial number. They both got the same batch number. They both got the same routing number." So now the FBI is looking at this guy. "You're a moron! You couldn't see this?"

[00:54:46] So my cousin says, "How would this play out? Let's say this got released into the United States and all this stock is phony." He goes, "You probably go into recession," but then he goes, "You'll hit a depression that you'd never come out of." He goes, "Do you understand what I'm saying?" Now, my cousin, Marcinkus, he was bad — I mean seriously, this guy is not a guy you played with, cardinal law. He'll kill you and take your life. There's no joke with this guy. He says, "So let's make the deal. We got a list of everybody that we gave stuff to. We'll give you the list and we'll give you 500 million." They were going to give them — in the United States, they made like close to $10 billion, 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:26] $10 billion. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:55:27] Billion, yeah, billion. Listen to me, you have no idea. The Vatican's worth at least a rough estimate, figure a billion times a billion. Let's put it that way. Take 700 billion and add that take three times over. That's what the Vatican's worth. They got more money than you will know what to do with it. But we can get into that whenever you want to. 

[00:55:46] He says, "Call New York up." The guy calls New York. He goes, "Tell him what I said." So then, they had the rotary phones where you used to put your finger and turn it. And there were about maybe 12 feet away. My cousin goes and heard about it. Over the phone, he hears the guy yelling, "You stupid son of a bitch, make the deal, make the f*cking deal." That's his boss in New York. The guy comes back. He makes the deal. Here's the list. Here's the money. There's no charge on that. We're free. Everything was written out. The FBI agent goes to take the documents. My cousin waved like this and he goes, "They'll stay over here in the Vatican vault." He goes, "I'm giving you a copy." He says, "Why?" He goes, "In case you guys try to do something, I got the originals over here. They're not to be touched and that's all the papers." They went back and we got back home just before Thanksgiving in 75. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:32] Those documents must still be somewhere in the Vatican where they're like just a bunch of fake stocks.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:56:36] Definitely. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:37] Definitely. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:56:37] They're still over there. They were in the Vatican vault. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:39] Jeez. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:56:40] They were in the Vatican vault. They didn't touch that. That'd probably be part of their archives now. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:44] Interesting. To me that — I mean, if your cousin was the head of the Vatican Bank and he was in on it, that just means that corruption runs through the Vatican from the top to the bottom 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:56:51] Of course.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:52] Yeah.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:56:52] Pope Paul VI was in on it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:54] Wow.

Anthony Raimondi: [00:56:55] Pope Paul VI. Let me tell you something. My cousins that were there, they're supposed to be cardinals and everything. Right? They all had girlfriends. They all had kids. The Pope, everybody talks about — I mean, the Pope was a great guy. Pope Paul VI, he had three kids. Let's talk freaking serious. Come on. How do you expect the guy to stay like this all his life and not go out with a woman? Come on. Let's be serious. That's stupid. But there's a lot involved. And especially when Pope John Paul I came in. That poor son of a b*tch. He signed his own death warrant.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:57:21] Well, tell me about that because that story is — that's crazy. That one, when I was reading the book, listening to you talk on The Enforcer podcast, which again, we'll link in the show notes. That one even kind of shook you up because you were like, "Wait a minute. We're going to do what now?" 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:57:35] Yeah. Pope Paul VI, he dies. So Pope John Paul I gets elected, one, two, three. Okay. After he's in about 16, 17 days, he turns around and says, "Anybody who was involved in the stock fraud with the Vatican, I'm going to excommunicate them and defrock them from the church," which means now you'll fall under Italian law. You'll follow all the laws, United States. We're all screwed. All right, let's put it that way. Marcinkus calls me up. He goes, "We're coming into New York." "All right. Good." They fly in. They say, "We got to see grandpa." That's all right. They had their own jet. Vatican has its own jet. They come in, come to the house. I said, "What's going on?" He says, "We'll talk." So they go see my grandfather, my father's father Antonio. They told them what happened. So he said, "All right. We got to get rid of him." I'm looking at him. I said, "You got to get rid of who?" "We got to get rid of the Pope." "Are you f*cking kidding me?" "Nope." He said, "You're coming with us." "I'm coming with you." "Yeah. You're coming with us." So my grandfather says, "Come, let's talk. What happened?" So my grandfather says, "I give you the 'Okay,' I give you my blessing." Because they came in to get my grandfather's okay to take this guy out. 

[00:58:43] Now, I have to go with him for two reasons. One is to tell them how to put him away nicely without using violence. So I say, "Why me?" He goes, "Well, you have numbers." “Yeah, but I killed them with guns and stuff." He goes, "No, but okay, I'm going to teach you how to do it very peacefully." And second — here's where you're going to get to laugh. I got to be there as a witness before God. I looked at him. "What?" He says, "When we die, we're going to go before God. And God's going to say, 'You killed one of my Popes.' And we can say, 'No, we did it humanely, he didn't suffer. He didn't have any pain.' And God's going to say to them, 'Who's your witness.' You're going to say, 'Our cousin, Anthony is our witness.'" So I'm supposed to go before God, tell Him this. God is going to look at me and He's going to go, "Uh-uh," he's going to pull the lever. I'm going to go to hell. The devil will say, "Nah, I don't want you either." And he's going to pull that. Now, I don't know where the f*ck I'm going to wind up. I say, "You've got to kill a Pope." He says, "Yeah." I say, "You're crazy." He says, "You know how many years we've been killing Popes in the Vatican? How many centuries have we been doing it?" For centuries. If they didn't like the guy that was in, they got rid of him, and put their own guy in. 

Jordan Harbinger: [00:59:46] Oh, wow. 

Anthony Raimondi: [00:59:46] I go back with them. And I'm saying, "You guys are f*cked." I saw the whole route of the Pope. He says, "He's what you do? Either get ketamine or Valium. Put it in his tea because he likes his tea real sweet. Once he goes to sleep, you get potassium cyanide in a glass bottle." "Well, why not plastic?" He goes, "If you get plastic, we're all going to be dead. You get glass with a glass eyedropper, fill the eyedropper up, put it in between his lips, and squeeze, and walk out of the room.

[01:00:14] Pope turns around and falls asleep. We're watching everything, all the cardinals. Everybody is there. He goes in. Puts it in. He walks out. Close the door. The guy who brings the tea and everything goes to check on the Pope. Half an hour later, ringing the bell. There's something wrong with the Pope, something wrong with the Pope. Doctor comes in. Pope is dead. Now, they're crying. "You hypocritical bastards. You just whacked the guy and you cry." My cousin goes, "We got to make it look good." 

[01:00:40] Now here's the catch. The only one who can touch a Pope, you got to be a doctor, embalmer, or whatever — you have to be with the Vatican, living in Vatican City. You can't be like a cardinal and you're a doctor you live outside in Rome. You got to be living in Vatican or else you can't touch him. No, everything is in-house. Everybody knew what was going to go on. They laid him out. After that, paint the wall. Goodbye! 

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:03] Oh, right, because they put him in the — 

Anthony Raimondi: [01:01:05] Yeah. In the wall, in the mausoleum.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:06] Yeah, mausoleum. 

Anthony Raimondi: [01:01:08] But there's a lot more to that story, but I got that in book two, which you'd all be surprised on. Find out who he was related to this guy, Pope Paul. 

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:16] I'm very curious. I'm very curious. 

Anthony Raimondi: [01:01:19] That's in book two.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:19] All right.

Anthony Raimondi: [01:01:20] One thing I will tell you. It was always written in stone that when the Pope died, he would get in and he got in like that. It was already written in stone that he would become the next Pope.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:29] Oh, interesting. So that isn't some sort of like deliberative process. That was already decided beforehand. 

Anthony Raimondi: [01:01:35] Because of who he was related to. And like I said, it's in book two, but when book two comes out, if you want an interview on it, I'll give you an interview on that and I'll let you know.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:42] You bet, of course.

Anthony Raimondi: [01:01:43] You'll be very surprised. You'll be in shock when you see that, especially about Lufthansa. I even got more about Lufthansa in book two. Not everything that was in book one. 

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:54] Stay tuned for part two of this interview coming up in just a couple of days here. I've got some thoughts on this episode as usual. But before I get into that, here's a preview of my conversation with Austin Meyer. He's a software developer who exposes patent trolls and how they shake down innocent victims using legal loopholes and abuse of the system. 

Austin Meyer: [01:02:13] I was working at a trade show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where I was sitting there in a sweltering hot aircraft hangar showing X-Plane, my flight simulator, to a steady parade of sweaty pilots, wandering through the hanger to look at my various wares, and all of a sudden, the phone rings.

[01:02:29] Hello. I noticed you've been sued for patent infringement. I'd be happy to represent you for a price. 

[01:02:35] And I said, "No, I'm not going to settle with somebody I've never even heard of before for infringing on a supposed patent I've never heard of before. 

[01:02:42] And he said, "Okay, just remember your defense cost is going to run around three million dollars."

Jordan Harbinger: [01:02:46] Wow. 

Austin Meyer: [01:02:47] The patent claims to own the idea of one computer, checking another computer to see if the computer program is allowed to run. The patent we were sued on had, as I recall, 113 claims. And every claim was almost the same. In other words, one claim would say a computer accessing another computer to unlock software. And the next thing would be software unlocked by one computer accessing another computer. Notice just the same thing over and over 113 times phrased a little bit differently each time because since it took us four years and two million dollars to overturn one of those sentences, they had the same thing written down 112 more times. So they could put us through this for the rest of our lives.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:29] For more with Austin Meyer, including the details of his own investigation into patent trolls, and why none of us are safe, check out episode 326 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. 

[01:03:42] Big thank you to Anthony Raimondi, The Enforcer. The podcast is called The Enforcer. We'll link to his book and that podcast in the show notes, a lot of stories in there. Stay tuned for part two of this interview coming up in just a couple of days here. 

[01:03:54] By the way, if you buy any of the books from our guests, any guest on the show, please do use the links we have in the show notes. It helps support the show. Worksheets for this episode are in the show notes. The transcript for this episode is in the show notes. And there's a video of this interview going up to our YouTube channel at jordanharbinger.com/youtube. I'm at @JordanHarbinger on both Twitter and Instagram or just hit me on LinkedIn. 

[01:04:15] I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships using systems, using tiny habits. That's over at our Six-Minute Networking course. That's all for free over at jordanharbinger.com/course. You got to dig the well before you get thirsty. Once you need relationships, you are too late to build them. And many of the guests you hear on the show, they help out in that course. They subscribe to that course. You'll be in good company. Come join us.

[01:04:37] This show is created in association with PodcastOne. My amazing team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, Josh Ballard, and Gabe Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know somebody who loves mafia stories or just wild tales like these, well, please do share this episode with them. This is one of a kind I'm telling you. Hopefully, you find something great in every episode. So please do share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show, so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. 

[01:05:15] Now, there are more ways to be a team with Microsoft Teams. Bring everyone together in one space with a new virtual room, collaborate live, drawing, sharing, and building ideas with everyone on the same page, and make sure more of your team is seen and heard with up to 49 people on screen at once. Learn more about all the newest Teams features at microsoft.com/teams.