The name Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano was once of the most feared names on the planet.
After rising to the position of underboss in the Mafia's Gambino crime family, he found himself facing a lengthy jail sentence after a police crackdown. Despite confessing to 19 killings, Sammy, whose real name is Salvatore Gravano, took a plea deal in which he testified against Mafia boss John Gotti and received a smaller five-year sentence.
Following his release from prison in 1994, he and his family – his now ex-wife, Debra, and their two kids, Karen and Gerard – relocated to start a new life under witness protection. However, the Brooklyn-born gangster, now 79, soon ditched his new alias and returned to his former name.
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Gaige Odom)Despite starting a fresh life, Sammy and his family soon found themselves embroiled in a new saga at the epicentre of the ecstasy drug trade in Arizona. It left Sammy facing a brand new rival, English stockbroker Shaun Attwood. The face-offs that followed landed Sammy with another sentence of 20 years behind bars.
Now, as his family tell their side of the story for the first time in an explosive new Warner Bros. and Max documentary, Sammy has further opened up to the Mirror about the dramatic events.
Speaking ahead of the release of Sons of Ecstasy, Sammy told us: "People will understand it [the story] a lot better after watching. [The documentary] explains how Gerard got into it [the drugs business]. It was a trial of errors. One after another. We were doing other things, and more or less, we were duped into it, and I really had no interest in it. [Viewers] will see the entire story and how the original story that came out with the press and the people involved was exaggerated tremendously."
The former Mafia underboss went on to explain how Arizona was "completely different than New York, Brooklyn". "That's the hub of the Mafia [New York]," he said. "It was right in the hub, right in the middle of it. Arizona, the people were more legitimate, and my kids found what was going on Arizona really wasn't happening in New York, there's ecstasy and parties and this and that.
"But it was like a whole different world to me. I didn't even know what ecstasy was. I mean, I never took drugs. I smoked pot a couple times as a kid, but I wasn't into drugs. I never took ecstasy. I never cared about it. I never even wondered what it was. It really was a bulls*** drug."
In the trailer for the show, Gerard is seen discussing how he wanted to run the ecstasy scene in Arizona before a rival – Shaun Attwood – began undercutting them. Speaking of how the drug rivalry quickly escalated, Gerard added in the clip: "They're going to kill me to send a message to my father." He claimed: "It was me and my family against the world".
Sammy confessed that he later discovered people had been using his name to brag about distribution. "I was in the pool business. I was in construction business, and my head was nowhere near these kids. I didn't even know them. They were a lot younger than me. I never went out with them, drinking or partying or doing anything.
"I only met one of them, and he was a college student. He was going to medical school. I liked him. I didn't mind him. He was my son's friend. I didn't know he was into ecstasy or anything. I thought, you know, he's a college kid going to medical school, good kid. That's what I thought, but I didn't know the real side of him. Of course, I never really got close to that."
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ABC - DIANE SAWYER INTV.)Sammy hesitated to divulge more on their links prior to the show's release. However, speaking of his son mixing with the wrong crowd, he said Gerard "knew it was a mistake".
"It was a big change for them [moving to Arizona]. He met some of them kids that were going out. He was like a fish out of water. He made friends with them, and he went down the wrong path with them, following them. It was a mistake. He knew it was a mistake. He realises it now. He realised as it was happening.
"Like I said, it was a quick thing. They were under investigation for a year. He met them and in 5, 6, 7, weeks, he was gone. He was brought into it for his name. I think they said things about him that were exaggerated. He did befriend them. He did do things – in the show he admits to it and doesn't hide from what he did."
In 2000, Sammy – along with his wife, daughter and son – were arrested in connection with an ecstasy trafficking ring that authorities said made them about $500,000 per week. He was accused of buying 40,000 ecstasy pills from a drug gang in New York. He pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges in Arizona and New York in 2001 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, being released in 2017. Gerard was sentenced to nine years.
The UK release of Sons of Ecstasy is still to be confirmed, with US viewers able to watch it on Max from January 9.
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English (US) ·