Sons of Ecstasy (2025) Movie Script

1
- Hey.
- Hey.
- How you doin'?
- [kisses]
- You look great.
- Yeah?
I've lost some weight.
Yeah. Hey, but you look
good, you look great.
- Hey.
- Hey.
[kisses]
- Hey. Good seeing you.
- Good seeing you. You look great.
All right, this is living
room, take one. AB common mark.
- [man] And we are speed and set.
- Rolling.
[man 2] Hey, Sam, do you
want to pick up a photo there
and tell me what
we're looking at?
This is a Christmas with
my daughter and my son.
- [Gerard] Is that in Brooklyn?
- I want to think that's Grandma and Grandpa's house
in Long Island.
And then this is you,
got a little older.
We're on a boat.
- Those were, like, the best memories of my life.
- That was amazing.
[Karen] This is my communion.
Gerard, look how short
you were. [chuckles]
[Karen] Look how innocent you
look, just young and innocent.
Did you ever go to confession
and tell the priest your sins?
Mmm, yeah, I went to confession.
I told the priest, "You tell me
yours and I'll tell you mine."
[Sammy] My name is Salvatore
"Sammy the Bull" Gravano.
I'm a fucking gangster.
[man] On the right
is John Gotti.
On the left, his trusted
assistant Sammy the Bull.
Gravano committed
19 mob murders.
Like my father, I also
believed in Cosa Nostra.
But then everything changed.
Am I a rat?
I took fucking 20 years to help my
kids and my family. Is that a rat?
[Gerard] This is a story that we
never allowed my father to tell.
[reporter] This is
Phoenix, Arizona,
and this will be our
armchair vacation
to The Valley of the Sun.
[Karen] When we
moved to Phoenix
we were definitely
fish out of water.
- [crowd cheering] - [Karen] But
there was this whole underbelly
in the middle of the
desert having rave parties.
[reporter] What keeps much of the action
pumping, according to authorities...
- is the drug ecstasy.
- [woman whispers] Ecstasy.
[Gerard] I didn't come to Arizona to
sell drugs but I was built for this shit.
I wanted to control the
ecstasy scene here in Arizona.
But then some guys
started undercutting us.
- [woman] It was Shaun.
- [man] It was Shaun.
- [man 2] It was Shaun.
- [man 3] It was Shaun who was the mastermind
to our ecstasy empire.
It's fuck or be
fucked in this world.
[Gerard] This
means fucking war.
It's not fun anymore. Now we're
getting automatic weapons.
[man] Get down! Get down!
[man 2] It's like
a fuckin' movie.
[Gerard] I was
prepared to kill him.
- [thunder rumbling] - [Shaun] And
then the name "Sammy the Bull" Gravano
entered my sphere.
I don't give a flying fuck.
We'll go to war
[clicks] like that.
It was me and my family
against the world.
[Gerard] When we
moved to Arizona,
it was completely
different than New York.
I grew up with people that would pick
up a gun and shoot you in two seconds.
This is a story
that I'm gonna tell
that we never allowed
my father to tell,
me and my whole family...
but let's start
at the beginning.
We grew up in Staten Island.
A very, very tight-knit family.
This was my sister's birthday.
That's me.
That's my sister, and
there's my father.
He was always
present in our lives,
but at that time I really didn't know
anything about what my father did.
[Karen] At the time,
everything seemed normal to me.
I came home and I was
surrounded by love, family.
My father was a provider, he was
a protector, and he was a friend.
He was someone
that I always knew
was gonna be there,
no matter what,
so I didn't question much.
But then, at my sweet 16, I
remember my friend told me,
"John Gotti's here."
It was at that point I realized
my father's first family
was the Gambino family.
He was a gangster to the core.
He's Sammy the Bull.
[reporter] John Gotti and his
underboss, "Sammy the Bull" Gravano,
are two of the most notorious
and infamous figures
in the history of
organized crime in America.
Gravano committed
19 mob murders,
but none were as
expertly carried out
as the brazen 1985 assassination
of mob boss Paul Castellano.
[Gerard] I never judged what
my father did for one second.
Back then, I also
believed in Cosa Nostra.
If he killed someone
they deserved to die.
They did something wrong
or broke the rules.
Being surround by that life made
me want to do the same things.
It made me want to go out and
hurt people and commit robberies.
I wanted to be ready, I wanted
to know how to handle it,
so I was 15 and boxed at Gleason's
Gym in Brooklyn, New York.
I was in great shape, and
I was fighting people,
and I was building this
confidence within myself.
I started getting respected because
I was the son of Sammy the Bull.
That gave me a sense of power
that I can do what
I want to do...
and there was gonna
be no repercussion.
And then everything changed.
[reporter] In 1991,
facing life in prison,
"Sammy the Bull" Gravano
turned on his boss, John Gotti.
John Gotti, I, along with some
others, murdered Paul Castellano.
John Gotti became the boss.
I became the official underboss,
which I held until I began to
cooperate with the government in 1991.
[reporter 2] Sammy
the Bull's testimony
was crucial in convicting the
infamous mob boss John Gotti,
but it had also made
him a prime target
for the criminal underworld.
This development is
likely to have significant
and potentially
dangerous repercussions.
[reporter 3] Despite
admitting to 19 murders,
"Sammy the Bull" Gravano served
only five years in lockup
before being released into the
witness protection program.
They told my father
he had to do two years
in the witness protection
program in Colorado
and then he was done.
We never went to Colorado
when he was there.
We weren't allowed to.
But me, my mother, and my sister
never went in the witness
protection program.
We had nothing to do with it.
And we all stayed in New York.
And I had to take on the role
as the man of the family,
and at that time I was about
17, but I was willing to fight.
I was on high guard.
I did get two guns and I
carried them everywhere I went.
And I was gonna do anything I
had to do to protect my family.
And then, a few months later,
the FBI goes to my father.
They're like, "There was
a hit put on Gerard."
They're gonna kill me to
send a message to my father.
That was the plan.
My mother said, "That's it, I'm not doing
this anymore. We have to leave New York."
So we decided to move to Phoenix
to be closer to where my father
was in witness protection.
Before we left, we dug
up my father's money.
I put it in the
back of my truck,
and I was driving across
country with 3 million cash.
[Karen] As soon as my father left
the witness protection program,
which he was only
in for seven months,
he came straight to Phoenix.
[reporter] Sammy the Bull's
future whereabouts are uncertain.
However, given his past, he may
not be the most desirable neighbor.
But if he can effectively
conceal his previous identity,
his new neighbors won't know
that living in their midst
is a man with a
price on his head.
[Sammy] When I became a
main member in the mafia
that was a high for me.
I was involved in
three mafia wars...
and I was involved
in 19 murders.
I didn't like a hit but
I was focused on it.
To me, the mafia was no different
than being a soldier in the army.
I never killed a woman, a child,
or people out of the life.
It was always people who broke
the rules of Cosa Nostra.
You knew what it was.
But everybody knew the life...
and they knew the
consequences of the life.
I cooperated at one
time in my life.
And I tell my family...
"I broke the rule...
and I could be
killed at any time."
I came to Phoenix to
be with my family.
I wasn't gonna just
sit back and hide...
so I kept my name.
My father gave me that name,
and that's the name
I wanted to die with.
I didn't live with my
family, I lived by myself
because I knew the
mafia would come.
I had a .357 Magnum I always
carried around under my belt.
There was four loaded
guns in my apartment.
I was geared and ready
for any fuckin' hit guy
who would have came
down lookin' for me.
[Sammy] You cookin' up a storm?
- He hasn't started yet.
- [Gerard] Yeah, I'm gonna make...
- He was waiting for you.
- I'm waiting for you. I'll make some breakfast.
It's like when we first moved out here
to Phoenix and started our new life,
and you finally
came in and joined.
It was like we
never tried to hide.
We got away from the mafia,
we got away from everything...
- we got away from our past.
- [Gerard] Yeah, but there was always
- that possible threat of something happening.
- Oh, yeah, of course.
Actually, when I
first came to Arizona
I got concealed weapon permits,
I bought two, three guns,
because I was the
man of the house
- for a long time.
- [Sammy] While I was gone, right.
[Gerard] And now you
stepped back into that role.
My feelings is like,
"Okay, now, what do we do?"
It was, again, we were reunited,
and it was us against the world.
[Sammy] When I
came to Phoenix,
my thinking was no matter
how much they do to us,
we survive...
and we go forward.
I wanted nothing to do
with my old life. I'm done.
I wanted a good
life, clean life.
I was about to change my life.
So I started business,
legitimate businesses.
I had a pool company, an excavation
company, a construction company,
a restaurant, Uncle
Sal's Italian restaurant.
Gerard was in culinary school, so my father
thought this would be a great opportunity.
[Gerard] That's me cooking. Yeah,
I was in good shape back then.
[Karen] We were trying
to start a new life,
but one thing I will say, we were
definitely fish out of water.
- Let's just put that out.
- Yeah, no, no, we were.
It was totally different lifestyle
from New York to Arizona,
especially at that time.
I felt like Phoenix was so slow.
Did you feel the
same way, Gerard?
- Go out and see...
- Yeah, the people I would meet
and they were wearing flip flops
and socks up to their knees.
It was a different world.
For me, I was lookin'
to rebuild my life
and start from scratch.
[Karen] I remember
saying to my brother,
"You have to start
making some friends
and rebuild everything
that we lost in New York.
We have to start rebuilding
it here in Phoenix."
[Gerard] One night,
I'm in my restaurant...
and a friend walks in with this
charming guy named Mike Papa.
He's from Long
Island, he's Italian.
He was a good looking kid,
he was very articulate.
I was told that he was going
to ASU. He was a med student.
[Gerard] He walked
in and sat down,
and he plops down
$1,000 on the desk.
And I said, "What is that?"
He said, "It's a gift.
I want you to have this from me,
but I want you to come
out with us one night."
So I said, "You
know, why not?"
I took the 1,000, I
put it in my pocket.
Next night, I go out with him.
We walk in to the VIP. The
bouncer gives us this table.
He puts a bottle on the table.
Everything is on the house.
I felt like I was
back in New York.
[Karen] Who doesn't want
to go out and pop bottles?
We came from a lifestyle
like that in New York.
Anything we wanted, we got.
It's like that life that was ripped
away from us just started coming back.
[Gerard] And at that point, I
became fast friends with Mike Papa.
He's very popular in
town and the club scene,
and everyone knew who he was.
And so going to
these nightclubs,
I started to notice he
was selling ecstasy.
I was closing up for the night,
and Mike Papa comes in and says,
"You know, I really
cornered the market,
and if you come in with me we can
really make some good money with this."
So I said, "What are we
gonna make from 'em?"
"We'll make about 2,
maybe 250 per pill."
And you're selling
30,000 pills a week?
That don't sound bad.
And, at that time, I was about
20, $30,000 in credit card debt,
so I had a motivation to
go out and make fast money.
So I said, "What do
you need from me?"
Mike Papa said, "We
need a supplier.
We need to get this
product cheaper."
- I knew people in New York and
people I grew up with - [beeps]
that I was still
very friendly with...
- and I started asking around...
- [telephone ringing]
"Can we get ecstasy?
What's the price?"
I was trying to get it cheaper.
Well, I did find someone.
I had it set up where I was
gonna get 30, 40,000 pills.
But then, somehow or
another, my sister found out.
[Karen] So now there's all
this talk about New York.
"New York, New York."
Talking about he's gonna start
selling ecstasy because he has connections
where he can get it in New York.
Gerard had left New York 'cause
there was a hit put out on him.
So, I'm thinking, "If
Gerard goes there...
connects with the
wrong person...
[gun firing]
it's gonna be bad."
So, my instinct is
to go to the man
that I go to whenever
I'm in trouble,
and that man is my father.
My father was, obviously, a big
gangster outside of the house,
but what he did outside of the
house never reflected in the house.
He was such a good father.
He would bend over backwards if he
knows that can he help me or Gerard.
[Sammy] I have a
split personality,
part of me is a lion
and part of me is a lamb.
This is a great memory.
- Put 'em up, G.
- Okay, Dad.
[Sammy] Here's what
I did in a the mob,
when I was making
money I bought a farm.
All right, Gerard!
And I bought them horses,
and mini bikes, and chickens,
and you name it, it was a farm.
See, that's when
they stop on my foot.
Friday night, I left
the mob behind me
and I did this.
I found happiness away
from a violent lifestyle.
When I was there I
wasn't in the mafia.
I wasn't a hitman, I was a dad.
Look at the smile on
his face as a kid.
And my son's like a cowboy.
Nice day on the
tracks, Gerard...
I kept Gerard away
from the mafia,
a lot of guys bring
their kids in.
I'd never had intentions of
bringing my son into the life.
So, when I heard Gerard
was selling drugs
I was so angry, I wanted to
get him outta that business.
[Gerard] I remember
sitting in my house,
I was by myself,
I was watching TV.
Next thing I know, my front
door comes crashing in.
It's my father. He runs up to
me, tackles me, and he's like,
"What the fuck are you
doing? What are you thinking?
You wanna go to New York? You
wanna fucking sell drugs?"
I said, "You can't come
here and deal drugs."
[Gerard] He felt like I
was going behind his back,
doing something that could
affect him and the entire family.
I didn't want him going into
New York for fear for his life.
[Gerard] And he
shook me and he said,
"Do you wanna die?
I'll kill you if you wanna die.
I'm not gonna let anyone else kill
my son. I'm not gonna allow it."
[Sammy] I tell ya,
I'll kill ya myself.
I said, "I'm not asking you.
I'm telling you, don't do it."
I was here in Phoenix and moved outta
New York because of his choices.
But I never questioned
his choices.
So me, I'm 22 years old, and he's
in my house telling me what to do,
questioning my choices.
I didn't need him anymore.
And I wasn't gonna
be told what to do.
And I told him that night,
if he wanted to go to war with
me, if that's what he wished,
we can do so.
Listen, I don't
give a flying fuck.
We'll go to war [snaps
fingers] like that.
[Gerard] My father was so
devastated that he just left.
I went to New York
I think I got, like,
30,000 hits of ecstasy.
I brought it back to Arizona.
We got rid of them in a week.
We made $90,000 profit.
I was very successful.
I didn't come to Arizona to sell
drugs, but I was built for this shit.
I thrived in it.
At that point,
I wanted to control the
ecstasy scene here in Arizona
and no one was gonna stop me.
But then one day, Mike
Papa, started telling me
about some guy that's
undercutting us.
And that his prices
were considerably lower
and that we would not
be able to compete.
And that's how I learned about
the rave scene in Arizona.
[Karen] There's this
whole underbelly,
this whole lifestyle of people,
that once the clubs close
they're in the middle of the
desert having rave parties.
[Gerard] And the person who threw these
raves was a guy named English Shaun.
He controlled the
ecstasy trade in Arizona.
I told Mike Papa,
"Let's talk to him.
Maybe we can get
a better deal."
I'm not expecting to get them
for what he's getting them for.
But I expected to get it cheaper
and we could all be happy.
So we decided to
contact English Shaun.
[Shaun] My mantra
was, "Greed is good."
It's fuck or be
fucked in this world.
Whatever it takes, I'm
gonna make the most money,
whatever means possible.
At the peak of the
criminal enterprise,
I had approximately 200
people working for me.
The profits over the years
was over $5 million dollars.
And the street market
value of those drugs
in the 10s of millions.
I controlled the ecstasy
scene in Arizona.
One of my biggest markets was
at a club called The Ice House.
The Ice House was the
epicenter of the rave scene.
And it was there that
my master salesman,
Schooly, made the most money.
[Schooly] This
place is different.
A lot different.
I'm Schooly.
I was English Shaun's
number one salesman.
We ran the ecstasy market
in Phoenix through
this location.
Phoenix in the '90s was
a very special place.
Raves were new to me and
new to everybody around us.
It was like a wonderland.
There was a place where
light wouldn't come in,
where you could step back in the
shadows and nobody could see you.
They could see everybody else, but
they couldn't see past the shadow line.
And that's where I would
sell pills all night.
I could make $14,000, $15,000,
$18,000 here in a night.
Like, my pockets would be out to
here with money stuffed into 'em,
by the end of the night.
Everyone came to
English Shaun's parties
'cause you knew you could
get the best pills there.
But then everything
started changing.
There was a guy that usually
would get pills from us.
On day he said, "Hey,
check these out."
And he had these other pills
we had never seen before.
I'm like, "Man, where
you getting these?"
All of a sudden a new type of ecstasy
dealer starts to appear on the scene,
run by two guys called
Gerard Gravano and Mike Papa.
These guys are
massive, muscle bound,
steroid head, jock,
type characters.
Probably not
dressing like ravers.
[Schooly] They have tight shirts
on, always gel in their hair.
Like, mafia wannabes.
The Sopranos must
have been their bible
'cause that's how
they all acted.
They were there to just...
make money and lift weights.
I don't know what the
fuck those kids do.
[Shaun] They became the biggest
threat to the organization.
[Gerard] Every time I reached out to
English Shaun he refused to meet me.
The way I grew up, and it goes back
to New York, there was that mentality
in my head that you're refusing
to come in to talk to me.
And my feeling was
immediate disrespect.
So, Mike Papa asked me,
"Well, what are we gonna do?"
I said, "I'm not gonna
let anyone disrespect me."
I said to Mike Papa, "Let's
go to one of Shaun's raves."
I wanted to send a
message back to Shaun,
so we go to The Ice House.
Wow. The Ice House.
I use to come here
back in the day.
Me, and Mike Papa, a
bunch of my friends.
I was on planet Mars
when I walked in here.
It was a bunch of kids really,
running around, waving glow sticks,
sucking on pacifiers,
they were like a bunch of babies
jumping, bouncing off walls.
We used to just disperse and
ask who was selling drugs.
This kid came running
right up to us.
He's like, "What'd you want? I got
this kind, this kind, this kind."
And I said, "Okay. I want
more. Do you got more?"
I'm like, "I'll pay $20
apiece, I don't care.
I don't care, just get
me a couple hundred."
He ran around the club probably
gathered from all his little friends.
And he came back, he said,
"I have this, this, and this.
Three different
kinds, it's $200."
I said, "All right,"
and I just took 'em.
He said, "What're you doing?"
I said, "Go tell Shaun
that Gerard took his shit.
And if you don't walk
outta here right now
I'm gonna send you outta
here on a stretcher."
He turned around, left with
his tail between his legs,
and I sent my message.
I shot my shot.
[phone ringing]
[Shaun] After I found out
that one of my dealers
had been robbed
by Gerard Gravano
I was so determined not to
lose my grip on the empire.
At that time, in Arizona, my ego
was a big as the Grand Canyon.
I was a character in the scene.
I've got all these
people working for me.
I'm the man, Mr. Cool guy.
I was addicted to the lifestyle.
But rewinding my life back,
it's hard to believe
that I ended up running
an international ecstasy
trafficking operation.
I'm from a chemical manufacturing
town just outside Liverpool
in the Northwest of England.
Didn't have much
money growing up.
My dad was a door-to-door
insurance salesman.
My mom was a stay-at-home
mom in the beginning.
But for me, one of my early influences
was watching the movie Wall Street.
Where Michael Douglas
played Gordon Gekko,
this corporate takeover artist.
Greed, for lack
of a better word,
is good.
[Shaun] So, I wanted to
concur the stock market.
I was gonna go out there
make these millions,
and become something far
removed from what my father was.
Right now, we're on
the M62 to Liverpool
where I was doing my
business studies degree.
So, this road held
promise for me
of, not just education
and forever prospects in the
stock market, and my career.
But also [chuckling] eventually
the thing that completely
changed my destine,
which was the rave scene.
[reporter] It's been called
a youth-culture of 1988,
the new sound is
called acid house.
And it's not just a type
of music, it's a movement.
And it's fueled with
the drug ecstasy.
[Shaun] So, when I saw these
people on TV I'm thinking,
"I want some of that."
Because I was a shy, anxious
teenager, no way would I dance.
The thought of dancing
just mortified me.
And then that very first time I went
to the Thunderdome, all that changed.
When I showed up
at the Thunderdome
my mate scored some ecstasy.
He says, "You gotta
neck the pill."
So, about 30 minutes in
the ecstasy starts to hit.
My body's getting all
warm, my head's tingling,
I've got goosebumps on my arms,
it's tickling
running up the spine,
my t-shirt feels like
it's melting into my body.
I look up, I'm just
smiling this massive grin.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
The whole room's moving
this rocking motion.
We're doing this, doing this,
this, and this.
Finally, for my first
time in my life,
I'm loving dancing.
I'm enjoying dancing.
I never want to stop dancing.
When I took ecstasy, all that
stress and tension melted away.
From that moment on,
raving became my religion.
I never wanted the party to end.
I sat my final exam for my
degree coming down off ecstasy.
So, I had all these
beeps and beats,
[mimicking rave music]
going off in my brain
as I'm doing all these
balance, and payments,
equations, pages and
pages of calculus.
However,
I aced the test.
I've got my education,
and all I can think about
now is going over to America,
concurring the stock market, and becoming
a millionaire by the time I'm 30.
My Aunt Sue lived in Phoenix.
So, in May 1991, I'm embarking
on my journey to Arizona.
When I arrived in Phoenix
all I had was my
student credit cards.
But I was so determined whatever it
takes, I'm gonna rise up in America.
My first two years in Phoenix was
a penny stock brokerage outfit,
I'm barely making ends meet.
I'm running out of money
on my student credit cards.
But as we get to
years three and four
I start becoming the guy
who's getting the most leads.
[chuckles] And my commissions
are going through the roof.
By 1996 I'm the top
producer and stock broker.
My commissions for that
year were over $500,000.
It was then that I realized
the money was great.
But I was getting burnt out on
the rat race, I needed an escape.
And then one night I went
to the Silver Dollar Club.
Entering the Silver Dollar Club,
could feel the
goosebumps on my arms
as I saw the DJ, strobe
lights, hands in the air.
The music that I'd enjoyed in England
was just creeping into the Arizona scene.
So I said, "We gotta
get some ecstasy."
So, we're looking around
and there was this big guy,
Moo his name was, with a
bull ring through his nose.
And he's the guy who hooked us up with
ecstasy for the first time in Phoenix.
So, as soon as that kicked in,
then I was just right at home.
Dancing my ass off
all night long.
Talking to strangers.
Meeting the DJs.
I was having the
absolute time of my life.
Ecstasy was virtually impossible
to source in Phoenix, Arizona.
The most we could get from the
local dealers was 50 to 100.
In the beginning, I
was just showing off
giving them to my
friends for free.
But the demand for
ecstasy is so high
I can't even get enough
to hook up my friends.
So, I'm seeing that there
is an arbitrage opportunity.
If we can find out where these
guys are getting them from,
there's a possibility here
of making a lot of cash fast.
Found out that the
locals were getting them
from this surfer, gangster guy
called Saul out of California.
Arranged a meeting with
Saul and do my first
interstate, bulk
ecstasy transaction.
And they were going for
$25 to $30 back then.
Those pills were
gone in one weekend.
Now I saw this other
path of parting,
chemical fueled happiness.
A lure that
completely demolished
the worth of wall
street side of me.
That's when I made the
decision to go full-time
and try making money
from ecstasy and raves.
And that's when the guy nicknamed
Schooly came into my life.
At the beginning, I'm like, "Hey,
man. I wanna get a bunch of pills.
I wanna make some money.
Like, I really don't have a place to
live, I need to get my hustle on."
[Shaun] He was living rough.
Smoking crack, eating
out of dumpsters.
And people warned
me to avoid him.
But my attitude was to give
everybody an opportunity.
He said, "If you can get rid of these
pills for me, I'll give you a job."
[snaps fingers] He
sold 'em like that.
I think English Shaun first
saw me as an investment.
And then it turned
into a friendship,
and then into a brotherhood.
And we just hung out all the
time, we partied together.
And we called each other
Little Brother and Big Brother.
[British accent]
Little Brother.
[regular voice] I could
count on him for anything.
He got me out of a
lot of problems and...
he did a lot for me.
He made sure I had
a place to live,
he paid for everything, and in return,
I made him a lot of money, you know.
[Shaun] With Schooly at my side
I was at the top of a
multimillion-dollar monopoly.
But eventually all monopolies
attract competition.
[Gerard] English Shaun
was selling the finest.
This guy's gonna knock us outta business
'cause we can't even compete with him anymore.
So, to take out
English Shaun's empire
I needed to step-up our supply.
Somehow we got on the road and
go back and forth to New York.
That was just picking
up 50,000 pills.
We were selling these
things so quick.
I had different looking
pills than Shaun's,
they were red and white,
they were everywhere.
And everyone knew they
were coming from me.
Shaun had to be
feeling the pressure.
[Shaun] We started noticing a new flood
of colored pills hitting the market.
I knew we needed to
step-up our game.
So, I started flying Schooly
directly to LA to ramp up our buys.
Pre-9/11 security was easy.
No dogs, no Homeland Security.
You could walk from your car to the
gate without going through any security.
But in LA, any bag that you have
you have to send through
the X-ray machine.
I'm trying to figure
out a new way every time
to get these pills back
on the plane with me.
Nobody can see anything
taped to your legs
when you're wearing huge JNCO
jeans going through security.
I could have probably taped a German shepherd
[chuckling] to my legs and got through.
I got really
nervous all the time
'cause I didn't know if this was gonna
be the time that I go to jail or not.
But nothing ever happened.
I had a stack of plane
tickets like this.
I don't know how many times I
went to LA, probably 75-80 times.
[reporter] Ecstasy, the
euphoric happy pills,
are the dynamic fuel that
propel all-night rave parties
to go on, and on, and on.
Over the last two years America has
seen a 71% increase in teen ecstasy use.
[reporter] Researchers are now linking
ecstasy to fatal high blood pressure,
killer kidney trouble, and
even deadly heart failure.
It's dangerous, it's addictive,
it's deadly, and it needs to stop.
I didn't know anything about ecstasy until
I got told that I was gonna supervise
a teenage enforcement squad
to try to lower the
teenage drug use
in the Phoenix
metropolitan area.
We actually inserted
detectives in high schools
and did the whole 21
Jump Street thing.
Not knowing where it
was gonna take us.
That's when we first found out about
this ecstasy-rave-club-culture.
I always listened to '80s rock.
Some harder stuff like
AC/DC, and Led Zeppelin,
and I'm from New Jersey, so
of course Bruce Springsteen.
But this club, rave scene
was not that, I can tell ya.
During our surveillance, I remember
me parked outside one of the raves.
I just remember seeing
the crazy lights,
and the thumping of that techno
music just vibrating our whole car.
And we were like, "What in the
heck did we get ourselves into?"
I think we were one of the
first units in the country
that actually proactively went into
the raves and started making buys.
Matt Shay's probably one of the
best undercover officers I've seen.
I was just in my mid-twenties.
We had a lot of fun going out
and making undercover buys.
Rose was on the same squad,
she's prefect for the part,
this beautiful, young, narc.
Super easy for her to get in
with a crowd, she fit right in.
As a young child I wanted
to be a Charlie's Angel,
and so it was fun
being somebody else.
Did my hair up goofy like.
Put some, you know,
pink in there.
And just kinda made ourselves
free-loving, I guess, you could say.
During the investigation I worked
undercover at The Ice House.
When I came in I
was just shocked.
It was just super-crazy loud.
Thump, thump, thump, thump,
thump. Over and over again.
'Cause they were using ecstasy.
A lot of them were underage
17, 18, 19 year olds.
Pretty much as soon
as we walked in
people started coming over and
asking, do we want anything.
And we just started making buys.
[James] We didn't make
arrests right away.
One guy would come to
a rave with 1,000 pills
and put 'em in the
hands of 20 kids
and then let them
go out and sell.
So, we were trying to
identify the next level up.
[Rose] When we started asking around
about who was behind the drugs,
the same guy kept coming
up over and over again.
And that was English Shaun.
[Matthew] He was a major
supplier of ecstasy.
He was an entrepreneur
in drug dealing, right?
He provided the whole package.
And hand over fist, he
made a ton of money.
But he's not the only guy that
sells ecstasy in this town.
[Rose] During the investigation we
found out there was another seller
infringing on English Shaun.
[James] And that's how we ended
up bouncing into Mike Papa.
Mike Papa was involved
in a variety of crimes,
and one of those
crimes is selling drugs
in the metro Phoenix area.
[James] So, when we started looking at Mike
Papa we were in a whole different league.
You know, they
didn't go to raves,
they didn't go to that
lower-end street level stuff.
They were in the high-end
clubs in Scottsdale.
[Rose] He was more about money,
and looks, and being important.
He was not about partying
and looking like a raver.
[James] That was a phone
call that we captured
on our wire tap form
Mike Papa's phone.
That call was significant
because Mike Papa's phone
was registered back to
Marathon Construction.
So, another detective and I went to
that location to do some surveillance.
I was looking through binoculars
and I was like, "Oh, my God!
I can't believe it.
It's Sammy 'The
Bull' Gravano."
[Matthew] That's
fantastic, yeah.
Bring him on in Phoenix and
drop him down on top of us
and then leave him alone.
That's a great idea.
The investigators thought,
"All right, if Sammy's gonna
come and play in our sandbox
then we're gonna
get him dirty."
[Gerard] I'm gonna tell
ya a story about Dad.
My father, he never sold drugs
his entire life in the streets.
And he could've made millions
of dollars selling drugs.
He never did it.
When I was in a
powerhouse, in New York,
drugs were coming in,
heroin, I was never involved.
I didn't want that kinda
heat or those kinda people.
[Gerard] Look, now his
son is selling drugs.
Obviously, he knew. He
stayed away a little bit.
I guess he was probably trying
to think how he could approach
the situation in a different
way to get me to stop.
And then, one day, he
came to me and said,
"Hey, how can I help you
get outta this whole thing?"
And I didn't want him
going to New York anymore.
[Gerard] I said, "Okay,
you want us out of this,
we need to make about three or
four big buys, we need cash."
We needed a $150,000 per buy.
I would've never accepted
that back in Staten Island.
But I became a little more
liberal than I normally was.
I didn't wanna bully him
or do anything like that.
I wanted him to understand that
for himself to wanna pull away.
So, I said, "Listen.
If I fund four deals,
four big deals,
would you give me your word
that you guys would quit?
You'd have a pocket
full of money
and then come with me in
a legitimate businesses."
[Gerard] He explained that
there's heat that comes with this,
there's long prison sentences.
You can't do this for
a long period of time.
So, four deals and
then you're done.
But I want interest on my money.
Like, I would lend
it out as a gangster.
Yeah, of course my father was
gonna take his cut off of it.
My father's still who he is.
He's still Sammy "The Bull."
[Gerard] And we all
sat there and agreed.
And I funded four deals.
[Gerard] With my
father's money,
me and Mike can now muscle
into Shaun's LA connection.
[Shaun] Gerard
Gravano and Mike Papa
expanded their source
from New York to LA.
So, I did something radical.
I'm thinking, "We need
to take this to Holland."
[reporter] Amsterdam
is a lesser-known side
the tourist guides tend to omit.
Over 90% of ecstasy is
manufactured in Holland.
Shaun started to look to
Amsterdam to find pills.
And they were less
than half the price,
they were $2 or $3 a
pill versus $8.50 a pill.
Somebody just had to fly
over there and get 'em.
[Shaun] We had people
fly over to Holland,
picked up the pills,
flew to Mexico City,
and brought in the pills over
the Arizona border from Mexico.
Shipment sizes increased from the
5,000 to 10,000 I could get out of LA
up to 10s of thousands
of pills per load.
The most we brought in was 40,000
pills stacked in computer towers.
So, you're talking hundreds of
thousands of dollars profit.
In the beginning, we were wrapping the
money, it was going into sports bags.
But the money started
coming in so fast
I had to figure out
strategies to launder it.
To maximize my profits,
I drew on all of the
knowledge I'd gleaned
from my business
studies education.
I flew people from the UK, opened
bank accounts in their names,
opened stock market
accounts in their names.
And once that money
went into that account
it then went into a spider's
web of various accounts
in the stock market.
It's been said that
I ultimately ended up
with a case of
gangster capitalism.
I would never consider
myself a gangster.
I would say that I was
a business graduate nerd
that had a huge case
of gangsteritis.
And gangsteritis
means that I've
watched too many movies
and TV programs like
Miami Vice and Scarface.
I was attracted to the
adrenaline, and the buzz,
and the glamorization
of that world.
Myself and my friends would joke
we're living like
characters out of a movie.
Blah, blah, blah,
we'll never get caught.
We had all of these
grandiose delusions.
[reporter] While illegal drug
laboratories persist in producing ecstasy
Congress has recently enforced
stringent new prison sentences
for those engaged in
trafficking drugs.
There's no doubt about
where these raves are.
In the middle of the desert.
Arrest the promoter.
[James] We had two investigations
going on at the same time.
And then when Sammy "The Bull"
popped up during a surveillance
the Gravano investigation
became our main focus.
Once we knew that
Marathon Construction
was associated with
Sammy "The Bull" Gravano
we went out there, 2:00
or 3:00 in the morning,
and break into his office
and install some art bugs.
[phone ringing]
[James] As our
investigation advanced,
we started learning what
their daily habits were
and some of the
important locations.
Marathon Construction, the second
being Sammy "The Bull's" apartment.
And then, Uncle Sal's Restaurant,
which is in Scottsdale.
They would do drug deals
either in the front parking
lot or the back parking lot.
It was an excellent place
for us to be able to identify
different members of the organization
interacting with each other.
It was right out of a movie about
mobsters, quite honestly, right?
They would all come in,
shake hands, and
have a great time.
Sit in the back and allegedly
discuss business and whatever else.
[operatic music playing]
[Gerard] At this time, our
sales dropped dramatically.
We were now only selling
10,000 pills a week.
And I knew English Shaun was
selling up to 140,000 a week.
I knew a couple of his
dealers and I called them in.
We told 'em, "Tell English Shaun
Arizona is ours.
Every pill he sells
from here on out
he needs to pay us 50% on
every pill he fucking sells."
So, they went and brought
that message to him.
[Shaun] I heard that Gerard and Papa
were threatening to tax my sales.
I had to take this
threat seriously
because his operation was being
funded by none other than...
Sammy "The Bull" Gravano.
I'm thinking, "What the hell is going
on here?" I couldn't believe it.
In my mind, I'm running
the calculation.
Sammy "The Bull," he's
wacked a bunch of people,
but he's no longer
with the mafia.
I wasn't going to backdown, but I
knew I needed to increase my security.
This picture is myself and Wild
Man, my best friend from childhood.
Wild Man always had my back.
He would take a bullet for me.
And as crazy as it sounds,
growing up, Wild Man reminded me
of a character from one
of my Marvel Comics.
This maniac that's got these massive
muscles and brute force strength,
who's about to crush Ironman's
head in with this rock
symbolizes Wild Man.
So, I flew Wild Man
from England to Phoenix.
[Schooly] He fit that role,
it worked out so well.
You owed money, Wild
Man would go collect.
If there was a problem
or somebody was threatening you,
you brought Wild Man with you.
I've seen him...
hit people and knock 'em five
feet into a refrigerator.
I mean, he was a big
brick shithouse.
[Shaun] Now, we had
a protective shield.
But I was wondering how
long the peace would last.
[Schooly] I was at
a club one night,
two kids came up to buy pills.
Went to the bathroom
to make the deal.
Stuck my hand in my pocket to get
the pills and next thing I know...
I'm lying on the floor.
And I'm like, "What the
fuck just happened?"
I was knocked out.
Two of 'em sucker punched me.
Checked my pockets, my money
was gone, my pills were gone.
I'm like, "Ah, hell no.
This is some bullshit."
[Shaun] When information came in
that some of the Gravano people linked to
the attack on Schooly were our property
Wild Man jumped up and said,
"Let's go over there right away.
Nobody fucking rips
the English off!"
Four car loads showed up to
this house, 12 o'clock at night.
[Shaun] There was a bunch
of us armed to the teeth.
[Schooly] One person knocked on the
door, soon as they opened the door
everybody in the house.
[Shaun] So, we're
charging into this house.
Guns drawn.
It's almost like your
brain goes in slow-motion.
And I can hear Wild Man
yelling, "Don't fucking move!"
It's like a fucking movie.
We went through every room. We
took everything outta that house.
PlayStations, VCRs, TVs, shoes.
I mean, if it was worth $5 it came
outta that house into somebody's car,
we cleaned that house out.
We didn't get the drugs back,
but we got everything they owned.
[Shaun] And we just took off
into the night after that.
When I found out, my first
reaction was anger and rage.
And everyone's looking at me,
like, "What are you gonna do?"
The way I grew up, this
is how people get killed.
I said, "Okay."
I put the word out there
to everyone I knew,
the second someone sees
English Shaun to call us.
I need to know where he's
at, I need to find him.
I can't be disrespected.
Everyone was watching, everyone.
So, one night I got a phone call
telling me that English
Shaun was at the Crowbar.
Four, five of us got in the car,
we headed down to the Crowbar.
I had two or three guns on me and I
had a shovel in the back of my car.
Plan was to walk up to him,
choke him out, put him to sleep,
carry him out, put
him in the car.
I was prepare to kill him
and bury him in the desert.
[Gerard] We pull right
up to the Crowbar.
We all walked in,
place was crowed,
people dancing.
We were looking
for English Shaun.
But I couldn't find him.
He was gone.
[Shaun] It's downhill from there, it
just gets more and more dangerous.
I no longer felt safe
living in the Phoenix area.
[Schooly] Everybody
got real protected.
And everybody's getting violent
and it's not raving,
it's not fun anymore.
Now it's...
who's gonna get shot?
Who's gonna get kidnapped?
Like, who's gonna get robbed? Like...
And this is an everyday thing.
Everything was falling apart.
And then, I was told that Sammy
"The Bull" had a hit out on me.
They were offering $10,000 for
my head on a silver platter.
Now, I was having dreams at night
of people bursting through the door,
putting a gun to my face,
taking me out to the desert.
I was in a living hell.
I was doing more drugs and the side
effects were rising in the background.
Paranoia,
the malnourishment,
the sleepless nights,
the mental deterioration.
Everything just seemed to go
down all at the same time,
my organization
and my psychology.
[Schooly] And now Gravano's were
flooding the market with 1,000s of pills,
so our business dried up.
Like, the money
wasn't there anymore.
They took all the market.
They killed our empire.
[Rose] We knew that Mike Papa and
Gerard pushed English Shaun out.
And Gerard became the king of ecstasy
with Sammy as the money behind it.
[James] During our Papa
and Gravano wiretap
we were getting
circumstantial stuff
through Gerard's phone,
Mike Papa's phone.
And then, we had a breakthrough.
[James] Mike Papa was negotiating an
ecstasy deal with a supplier in LA.
[James] The deal was for around
$140,000 or 25,000 ecstasy pills.
[James] The next day, when the
confirmation was made to meet the courier
we followed Mike Papa
to a parking garage.
This meeting and purchase
with the supplier by Papa
was gonna be
monumental in our case.
We're gonna get one shot at this
and we need to make it happen.
The courier had the red
duffle bag with the pills.
We watched those drugs go
from the courier to Papa.
And then, the courier getting
out of Mike Papa's car
with the bag full
of the $140,000.
You know, in my
head I'm thinking,
"Okay, we got Papa, the courier,
locked down from that
deal in the conspiracy.
Let's see who we get next."
After the meeting, we
continually tracked Mike Papa.
We were hoping that he would go
back to where Sammy Gravano was.
And that's exactly what he did.
We knew he had the red
duffle bag with the pills.
And we saw him go into
Marathon Construction.
There was another plus that,
"Hey, we're getting closer to getting
Sammy wrapped up in this whole conspiracy."
Ironically enough, it
was Sammy's mistake
that really solidified
everything and did him in.
This call was significant
because it showed that Sammy
was an active participant in
financing the ecstasy drug deals.
When he had an argument
with Debra, his ex-wife.
[James] Sammy made a miscount
on the next $70,000 deal
and he called Debbie and he said,
"Hey, I'm counting it, it's short."
She said, "It shouldn't be.
You know, I counted it myself.
Gave it to your daughter,
Karen. She brought it to ya."
And, you know, at the same time
we have the hardwired bug in Marathon
hearing the money counter running.
Continuous slapping of
the money sorting through.
He ends up counting it again and the
recount, you know, he counts it right.
[James] Sammy making that miscount and
associating with his family on the phone
was pivotal in our case.
His miscount really solidified that he
was financing the purchase of the ecstasy.
But shortly after that call
he heard an electric screwdriver that
we felt was very close to our bug.
[screwdriver whirring]
Right after the stop of
the electric screwdriver
you could hear
Sammy get agitated
and then start singing
really loud in Italian.
[Sammy singing]
[James] And then, walk
out the back door.
[Karen] We were all in the office
and my father had called us outside.
We went in the back of the Marathon
Construction office and he said,
"Something is going on.
I feel it, there's
a presence here.
I don't know if it's
the mob from New York,
I don't know if
cops are following,
but whatever you guys have, if
you have anything in the house,
anything's going on,
make sure it's done.
I don't want it around me, I
don't want it around any of us."
And everyone agreed.
[Sammy] I was in bed.
And I had a little
dog, he was 6-pounds.
He'd sleep with me in the bed,
right between my legs, hanging out.
And I hear him growling.
Hair's up on his back
and he's growling.
[dog barking]
So, right next to the bed
I had the .357 Magnum.
I picked it up,
I moved the blinds a little bit,
and when I moved the blinds...
Police! On the ground!
[Sammy]... SWAT teams
came crashing in.
Kicked, punched, banged
down to the ground.
I could see out of the corner of my
eye the dog was fucking flipping out.
[dog barking]
I understand there was 200 cops,
helicopters, armored
vehicles to arrest me.
By myself.
When they opened the door I had
put the gun down, I had nothing.
But underwear.
I don't know what
they thought I was,
but I think it was
more of a show.
[James] After we arrested
Sammy "The Bull" Gravano
we got him down to
our processing center
and he immediately started
scanning all the
paperwork on the desk.
Trying to evaluate, you know,
how bad it is or what's going on.
So, I started telling everybody,
"Hey, flip the papers over."
He looked up at me right then and said,
"So, you're running this whole show?"
And I think my reply was,
"No. I'm just a working
man like you, Sammy."
When they took me in
I walked passed cages.
In one cage I saw my son,
I saw my daughter,
I saw my ex-wife.
I see my whole family
in different cages.
It broke my heart.
It really did, it
broke my heart.
My official charge
was illegal use
of an electronic communication
in a drug transaction.
They believed that I was
someone that passed messages
from my father to the
street organization.
I got probation because
I didn't have priors.
They didn't really have too much on my
father, but they had a lot on Gerard.
The fucked up thing about this whole
thing is when we all got arrested
my father had nothing to do with this,
they had very little to go on with him.
He may have been
looking at six years.
I'm looking at
40. I'm dead-cold.
I'm wiretaps, there's no way to
get outta this whole thing for me.
But then, the Federal
Government got involved
and everything went crazy.
[James] The FBI were so mad
that Sammy went back to crime.
And, frankly, I felt like they
got a little egg on their face.
The most importance to
them was charging Sammy.
They told me right away that, "We want
this guy. We wanna prosecute him."
Sammy "The Bull" was the
money behind the operation.
Was definitely the face.
[detective speaking]
[detective speaking]
When I look at that,
that's bullshit.
And that's a threat.
I would like to be sitting
in front of that cop...
with my .357 Magnum
pointed in his fucking face,
and say, "Do you wanna cooperate with
me now before I pull the trigger?"
He will be number 20.
[detective speaking]
This kid, he broke before
he got in the room.
He didn't even get
a slap in the face.
Mob guys in New York,
you gotta kick their balls
around a little bit...
for them to break. When you're
facing a slap in the face,
take the slap, motherfucker.
[Karen] People would look at
that and say he's a rat, right?
I look at it and
say he's a snake
because I think
this was something
that he was always
planning on doing
if he got in trouble.
[Gerard] He knew he was gonna
do that the day he met me.
In that restaurant Uncle Sal's,
when he introduced
himself to me,
and I agreed to go out with him,
he already knew he
was gonna do that.
He had his mind made up.
He had a get out
of jail free card.
And he was gonna betray
me no matter what.
From the day I started to the day
I got arrested was six months.
Even at the age of 77,
if I can get off this
chair quick enough,
I will probably break
the fucking chair
right over his head.
Not so much what he did to me.
What he did to my son
who treated him like a brother.
[Rose] When it came
down to everything,
Mike Papa ratted out Sammy,
which is ironic because Sammy
did that do to the Mafia.
What do you want me to say
about this? This is bullshit.
I cooperated because
John Gotti did something
that was a rat move.
His defense was trying to say
that I was killing everybody
and taking over everything.
So the theory was I would go
away and he would go free.
In my mind I said, "Then
fuck you, fuck the Mafia,
and I'm leaving, and
I'm gonna switch sides."
Whatever happens, happens.
So I decided to
walk the fuck away
from the Mafia and him.
Now, can I get rid of
this fucking thing?
Now, even with Mike Papa,
my lawyers were telling
me, "You could beat this,
but they're gonna bury your son.
Your wife is pinched.
Your daughter is pinched."
When I asked the lawyer,
"Then what do they want?"
"They want you, Sammy.
They want you to say
you're the boss of it.
They want you to
say you ran it all,
you took over Arizona,
you did everything."
[Gerard] And they told him,
"You need to take 20 years,
and we'll let your
wife, your daughter go,
we'll give your son
a light sentence,"
which 10 years to them
was a light sentence.
"But you have to
take 20 years."
And I told my lawyer, "Make
the deal. I did it all."
And that's exactly what I did.
Am I a rat? I took
fucking 20 years
to help my kids and my
family. Is that a rat?
He didn't sacrifice himself
the first time with John Gotti,
wouldn't do it for nothing.
But for his family,
he fell on the sword.
I think we all have to admit
that we have not stopped
the flow of ecstasy
with this case.
What we have done with this case
is shut down a major
drug organization
that was operating
in this valley,
and hopefully send
a message that, um,
we will take action.
[Shaun] "Sammy the Bull"
Gravano's ecstasy operation
had brought unnecessary heat to
the ecstasy scene in Arizona.
So I retreated to an
apartment in Scottsdale
and didn't even let most of the
people I used to associate know
where I lived.
But Schooly, Wild Man, and
his girlfriend, Wild Woman
remained in Phoenix's
drug-fueled world.
The closest people to
English Shaun at the time
would be me, Wild
Man, and Wild Woman.
She really caused me more
problems than anything.
She was a pain in
the ass, honestly.
This apartment is Wild
Woman's apartment.
This building has had so
much drugs run through it.
He didn't hide anything,
it was out in the open.
She had 300 people a day
running in here, day, night.
We were gonna get
arrested because of her.
Everything was gonna fall apart
because of how many people
she had running in
and out of this place.
I never said anything to
English Shaun about that
'cause at that time, Shaun and
I were on, like, the fringe
because Wild Woman started to
kinda come in between me and Shaun.
She started to cause a riff.
She was making up
stories about me, like,
to make him like
her more than me.
I just thought, "This
dude's abandoning me,
he's replacing me with
these other people.
This is some bullshit."
I was thinking, "Wild Woman's
fucking everything up."
I needed to shut this
place down, honestly,
'cause this was gonna
get us all in trouble.
I bought this smoke bomb at the
Spy Store in Downtown Phoenix.
I went to her house...
jumped out of the
car, pulled it out,
lit it on fire, as soon
as it started sparking
I went up and pulled it back,
and just [mimics hissing].
And I just took off running.
And you could just see
smoke already coming out,
shooting out the window,
and you just heard people
running and screaming
for their lives.
They had no idea what
the fuck was going on.
Wild Woman was near the window
when the fire bomb came in.
It just missed her,
and I think she's got
something on her face
still to this day.
[Schooly] After all that stuff
happened with Wild Man and Wild Woman,
I thought something bad
was gonna happen to me.
Wild Man was telling everybody he was gonna
murder Schooly for fire-bombing his woman.
Schooly was so
fearful for his life,
he fled the state.
I never spoke to him again.
I had to stay away,
and that's really about the time
that I dipped the fuck out.
There's no going back.
It was over between
me and Shaun.
And then May 16th 2002,
bam! bam! bam! bam!, [mimics door
opening] a door flies off its hinges,
and there's screaming,
"Hands above your head!
Get on the fucking ground now!
Don't fucking move!"
As I dropped to the floor,
I realized everything I'd
ever done wrong in my life,
I now had to pay the price for.
They cuffed me,
and one of the detectives
just hoisted me up...
and was in my face,
and he was like,
English Shaun, we've
finally got you."
And the question in my mind was
"Who betrayed me?"
[Schooly] Before
they arrested Shaun,
I got arrested for
cashing bad checks
because I'm broke and
I spun out on drugs.
I'm like, "What do I gotta
do to get outta this charge?"
The cops were like, "Well, tell
me something I don't know."
I just told them about
an ecstasy operation.
I kinda gave them stories,
rundowns about Wild
Man and English Shaun.
And he's like, "You
gotta prove it to me.
"Okay." I said, "Let me
walk out and go to my house
and I'll bring you back
a stack of plane tickets
that show I went
to LA every week.
And so I brought them back
that stack of ticket stubs,
and no charges filed,
they let me ride.
When I found out that
Schooly had gone to the cops,
I was heartbroken...
that my little brother
had gone that far.
I hadn't anticipated that.
If you're my big brother
and you got my back,
then you should
always have my back.
And if you're gonna discard me
for these other
fucking people, then...
it is what it is, you know.
I sure as hell ain't gonna
bite the bullet for somebody
that ain't gonna be
there for me in the end.
[interviewer speaking]
Loyalty, and I live by that.
[interviewer speaking]
Yeah, always.
Till the end. [chuckles]
Until the end.
Yeah.
When, uh, when the ship sinks,
I guess everybody
runs their own way.
You know.
[Shaun] I was sentenced
to nine and a half years.
I served 26 months in
Sheriff Joe Arpaio's
Maricopa County Jail system,
the jail system that had the
highest rate of death in America.
And to my shock and surprise, my prison
mate was none other than Gerard Gravano.
One day, Gerard told
me about his plans
the night he came looking for
me at the Crobar Nightclub.
I hadn't realized how
close I'd come to death.
It's been about 23 years since
the last time I was here.
Came in right in this
back door right here.
We were here looking
for English Shaun.
Place was crowded,
people dancing.
But he was gone
before I got here.
As we walking in this back door,
he was walking out
the front door.
We missed him
literally by seconds.
[crowd cheering]
But I was relieved actually
at the end of the day
that he wasn't here...
because I was prepared to kill
him that night in the desert...
only because it
was expected of me.
People expected
me to be violent,
people expected me
to go on robberies
because I was the son
of "Sammy the Bull."
I was pushed to be
someone I'm really not.
I grew up in the
shadow of the "Bull."
- [doves cooing] - Well,
growing up - in Staten Island,
in our backyard we
had these doves.
We had a pigeon coop,
and we used to have feed.
But by having these, stray, real
ugly gray pigeons used to come.
But we used to have a BB gun.
And we used to shoot them, and
they used to fall off the roof,
die, and put them in a bag, and throw
them away, it was pretty normal.
One day, I hit the bird...
[pigeon coos]
and he rolled off my
roof and hit the floor.
But he wasn't dead.
So I cocked the gun again,
I was gonna shoot him.
My father said, "No,
don't shoot him."
He said, "I want
you to pick him up,
and I want you to snap his
neck and throw him in the bag."
I looked at the bird.
I looked at my father.
I said, "I can't
do it. I just can't
fucking snap his neck and
throw him in the bag."
I could not fucking do it.
That's my father testing me to see am
I cut out for that life in the Mafia?
And I wasn't.
I didn't pass his test.
And the same thing
happened here in Arizona.
They expected me to kill people.
Mike Papa was in my ear,
"You're being disrespected,
you're being disrespected,
you're being disrespected."
And then I get a call
that Shaun Attwood
is here at this place.
And I said, "Okay,
I'll show you what
disrespect is."
But ultimately, at
the end of the day,
I probably couldn't have
done it. I sit here and say
that's what I was planning
on doing that night,
but I may have got
him out to the desert,
and I just couldn't
have done it.
So when English Shaun came into
the jail we formed a friendship.
I didn't have any problems
with him after that.
It was over.
Chapter closed.
[Shaun] Spending time with
Gerard Gravano in jail,
he opened up to me
about his struggles,
the pressure on him to
make a name for himself,
to be someone, 'cause
he's got this dad
who's a legendary figure.
And then the threats
to the family's lives.
The constant need for safety.
It really opened my heart
to what he'd been through.
For me, over the
following weeks,
I started to look back at
the last 10 years of my life,
and said to myself,
"Shaun, my God,
what have you done?
How on Earth are
you still alive?"
Doing an increasing amount
of drugs over the years
had eroded my conscience and put a cloud
in my head that I didn't know was there.
I'd surrounded
myself with people
engaging in equally insane
and criminal behavior,
and there was nobody
to put the brakes on.
I had to be pushed
to the brink to get
the English Shaun persona
crushed out of me.
It was a moment of truth for me
that I'd been
trying to hide from
throughout the whole
time in Arizona.
In all these story arcs
of drug trafficking,
it begins with the glitz,
the glamour, the fun...
then the cops, the
heat, the competition,
and then the
slippery slope down.
[crows cawing]
There's a hell of
a price to be paid
if you get involved
in the lifestyle.
Most of the men
from my inner circle
have paid the ultimate
price of death,
including Wild Man.
When I found out that
Wild Man had died,
my brain wouldn't accept it.
And then the next
day, that was it then,
that's when it just
started hitting me.
And there was an owl howling.
And I hadn't heard an
owl howl where I live.
And I thought it was him
saying goodbye to me.
[sniffles]
Part of owning up to my past is
coming to terms with the fact
that I brought my best
mate Wild Man to Arizona.
He ended up in jail
for seven years.
And he died a young man
back in our hometown.
I can't forgive myself for that
because it's something
I've got to live with
for the rest of my life.
Oh, where were we now?
[indistinct speaking]
[Shaun] When I walked out the gate and
saw my mom, dad, and sister smiling,
my excitement just
went through the roof
even though I'd
been awake for days.
I arrived in Phoenix, Arizona
with no cash, only credit cards.
I burnt through
millions over the years.
And I came back on UK soil
with a boxful of worthless
belongings from prison.
Looking back, one
of my worst memories
is having to call my parents
and tell them I'd been
incarcerated for drug dealing.
I thought I was so smart, above
the law, never get caught,
or even if I did get caught, I could
insulate myself from you guys finding out.
- Mmm.
- My friends wouldn't get arrested with me.
- I've got money over here. I could get a lawyer.
- Mmm.
- All that kind of stuff.
- Got it covered.
But I was wrong,
it was my own miscalculations.
Caused absolute
devastation in your lives.
It was dreadful, and
your mom was in pieces
'cause we didn't know
what we were gonna do.
And I think that same night,
we got a reverse
call from yourself.
Do you remember? And it was
you with this frightened voice
saying, "You need to raise as much money
as possible to get a good attorney."
Having to ask you guys for money
which was a horrible
thing to do.
[Shaun's dad] Mmm-hmm.
But I didn't understand
the full gravity 'cause I think you
were insulating me at that point.
It was early on over how
that affected your lives.
[Shaun's dad] Mmm, oh, yeah.
We just did what we could.
And over the years, as
your mom was working,
she also paid off various
lawyers' fees and legal fees.
The other horrible thing
besides the financial impact,
was my mom's nervous breakdown.
[Shaun's dad] She didn't
tell anybody for months.
She wouldn't let
me tell anybody.
[crying] Still feel
terrible for that.
I feel so guilty, dad, knowing the
suffering I've put youse through.
I would never do
anything like that again.
So sorry, dad.
It's done. It's passed.
- As far as I'm concerned, it's done.
- [sighs]
We forgive, and there's
nothing to forgive now.
I wanna thank you so much.
I mean, just what
you've said today...
has made me feel [chuckles]
a lot better to be honest.
I'm gonna have to give
my dad a hug, I think.
- Not too hard. I'm fragile, I'm fragile.
- [laughing]
Love you. I love
you. Thank you.
Thank you. Oh, my God.
Let me see if I can get that.
I can't make a shot
if I stood on my head.
We've been through a lot.
And here we are.
In the basement shooting pool.
And, uh, I think
you're the perfect guy
to take over and
fit into my shoes.
Just remember to stay
good and kind with people.
The family, keep it close.
And just do the right thing.
Don't make the mistakes I made.
I mean, I've been
kind-hearted a lot of...
a good portion of my life.
And I do have the
ability to be violent
even though...
it's not, you know,
not what I wanna do,
or a lot of times I was
acting because I'm your son.
People expect me to do things.
- Whether...
- Is that what this whole ecstasy thing was?
The drugs. Doesn't matter
what people want you to be.
Just 'cause I had a big name,
don't live in my shadows.
And know all the good
things I taught you.
The bad stuff, flush it down
the bowl. Get rid of it.
Step out of the
shadows and be you.
That's what you gotta be.
For a long time I had
a problem doing that.
I got caught up. I was
out here in Arizona,
I meet this kid Mike Papa.
I started to feel
like my old self,
like I was back in New York.
What do you think about it now?
You think he made you feel good?
No, and I should have
seen this from day one.
It's gone.
Don't carry baggage on that,
"You fucked up, and I went to
prison," and all of this shit.
- It... It happens itself.
- It's a heavy burden, though.
- It's... It's every burden... I mean...
- No. But get away from it.
- I put you in prison.
- Understand you made a mistake.
Don't live with it. It's...
It's over, it's done with.
We have our lives started again.
Don't look in the
rearview mirror,
you'll never grow.
Look through the front
windshield, go forward.
I look at him, he's a great kid.
I call him a kid,
he's not a kid,
he's a man, he's a great man.
But, uh, my life
must have added so
much pressure onto him,
being "Sammy the Bull's" son.
I think the... the Mafia
did some damage.
But it's how you come
out of these things.
[Gerard] You and mom I
think did a great job.
Raising me and Karen.
I just try to...
My whole goal now nowadays
is try to instill what...
what we were taught
growing up in my kids.
And I just hope one day I can
be a half as father as you were.
[sighs]
I think you've already been
twice the father that I am.
But, uh, that's a great
compliment, Gerard.
I appreciate that.
All I can say is people could
only pray to be so lucky
as to I still have you
today to ask you questions,
and to be here for me.
I will always be here for you.
I always will be here for you.
I really, really will.