Original subtitles

You ever wonder what goes through the mind of a mafia hitman?

I'm going to tell you.

I'm John Elite, ex -mafia enforcer, ex -killer.

I swore loyalty to the mob and this life. I became very wealthy.

But one day, the house of cards come tumbling down.

I had to choose between my mafia family or my own personal family.

I sacrificed their life and mine for the mob.

I grew up in Queens in the 70s.

It was a tough place to live.

I just had a drive in me not to be stuck in this neighborhood, I guess, since

I'm a kid.

I wanted to be wealthy.

I got my first job at Dick's Deli.

I learned to cut meat, make sandwiches, work the counter.

I'm making like a dollar something an hour.

All I kept thinking about was there's got to be a different way.

At home, I lived in total poverty.

My parents left Albania, which was a communist country, for this American

dream.

My mother was a typical young wife.

My dad was just a working class guy driving a taxi.

I didn't want to live in the poverty my father was living in. I wanted to get

out of that life.

And I was going to change our lives eventually.

And that was my goal.

I discovered the deli where I worked was a hangout for local mob guys, the mafia

guys.

They'd come in dressed real slick with expensive watches, jewelry, rings,

diamonds.

There's nothing about them that I don't like or that I don't want to be like.

And I realize I got to jump out of this deli and into the shoes of these guys

somehow.

Tony's the boss and he's running the show.

And I ask him, is there anything I can get you?

And he looks at me. He says, do me a favor, move my car. And he flipped me

keys.

I knew that was my end.

I was so excited that he trusted me to take his caddy as a kid.

I was all nervous, and I brought the car around the block.

I made sure I parked it right.

And he gave me $20 for moving his car.

That's my whole week's pay.

The start of the beginning of me running around for these guys.

As a teenager, my dad taught me to box so I could handle myself on the street.

He would hit me hard.

It was tough love, I guess.

But those skills actually made me understand pain.

He was going to help me survive the street and become a top gangster.

One day, Tony gets news about my reputation with my hand, and he says to

John, I need you to do a job for me. I need you to see somebody that owes me

money, that hasn't paid me.

It was clear to me that Tony wanted me to attack the guy, to scare him, to pay

up.

But I'm not really violent like that yet.

I remember thinking if I want to have money like Tony, if I want to drive

cars, I got to be like Tony. I got to do this.

Don't worry, Tony. I'll take care of it.

I'm getting closer to the house.

My heart's racing like crazy.

And I'm thinking, should I turn around?

If I turn around, I'm done with Tony.

I can't go back to the deli.

And I'm saying to myself, you can do it. You can do it.

I see the guy walking towards me.

I don't know if the guy was a killer.

Maybe the guy's got a knife.

Maybe the guy's got a gun.

And he says, what kid?

He was a little nasty.

And I said, Tony sent me here to see you.

And he starts to make excuses like, I'm going to take care of it.

As he's making excuses, I know it's about time I got to swing that bat.

I pick up the bat with my right hand. I grab it with the left.

I just kept swinging over and over and over

while he was screaming and yelling, please.

And I didn't even hear it.

I didn't want to think about what I was really doing.

And finally, I got tired of swinging.

And he's just laying there full of blood.

I was proud of myself.

And I said, now pay the money you owe.

I love it.

When I'm in the deli, the next day, Tony walks in.

I said, the guy you visited just paid me.

He gives me a $100 bill for the coffee.

I just want to scream like I just hit the lottery. I mean, I'm just a kid.

I was so excited and thought I could explode.

Tony knew at this point he can trust me.

I found a second home outside of my family that I felt powerful with, secure

with, making money with.

My job was to constantly.

Collect, hurt people, threaten people, burn things down, and beat them.

And I was good at it.

In my mind, everything was okay.

I was making money.

It was a reason to justify my crazy life and the crazy violence and my

loyalty to the mafia to be able to have a good life.

Okay, lesson one.

Tony showed me how to hold a gun.

I really understood that I could be strong with this gun. I could be

I think it made me feel like I could control the world with it.

If I could go back in time, I would tell that little deli boy, run as far away

from me as you can and don't ever look back.

One day I went up to my room.

My father saw me. I knew something was wrong.

He said, you're out shooting people like a lowlife, like an animal.

This is not what I taught you.

And I started screaming back, I'm not going to be like you, penniless and a

I'm going to have money.

I wanted to hurt my father by saying those words, although I regretted them.

I said, you're no longer my son.

Get out of my house.

Before I left the front door, I looked back and I thought, I just

chose the Mafia over my own father.

In retrospect, I understand he was trying to save my life, but I just

see it.

As the years went by, the Deli Boy became one of the top enforcers for the

mafia.

I no longer felt like a kid.

I'd become a man.

I'm the guy that made that American dream happen.

I'm making money for Tony.

Tony's kicking the money up to the boss of the Gambino family, John Gotti.

The boss of all bosses.

The head of the mafia.

Gotti heard that I was a big earner for the family.

And now he wanted to see me.

I knew this was it for me.

I was moving up the ladder to the top.

I knew I couldn't get any higher than John Gotti.

This was my time.

The first time I see John Gotti,

I look at him with respect, fear, intimidation.

He looks in my eyes, and he said, will you be loyal to this family above

anything else in your life?

Are you willing to give your life for me and my family?

I said, I can do that.

He said, you never, ever talk about anything we discuss here.

And I said, 100%.

He says, I need you to do a job for me.

And he tells me about a guy that's using his name, and he's in the drug

business, Georgie Grasso.

Are you familiar with him? I said, yeah, of course.

He's from my neighborhood.

There's rules in the Gambino family.

You're not to mention that you're selling drugs to John Gotti ever.

Gotti says, well, he was warned once, and I'm not warning anybody a second

Make sure.

that you kill them and make sure it's done right.

I need you to leave them in a very public place as a message.

The first thing in my mind is, am I ready to do this?

And then on the other side, I said, stop questioning yourself and go take care

of business.

I fully believed that I was doing something honorable.

It meant a lot to me to be loyal to...

Something that I believed in since I'm a kid now.

And I wasn't willing to rip it up after all the years.

There's no turning back.

I made the decision to kill Georgie Grasso.

I was being asked to be John Gotti's hitman.

If I refused, John Gotti would kill me. I understood that.

The key part of my plan was to get Georgie Grosso drunk on drugs to keep

loose so there was no problem killing him.

I'm at the bar and Georgie Grosso walks in. I go, hey, Georgie.

Come on, come over. We're all having shots.

And he goes, I just want to leave earlier. Just have one shot. It ain't

kill you. Have a shot.

And once he puts down the first one inside me, I say, OK, I got him.

Once I have Georgie drunk and high, he's going to want to continue the partying.

And I tell Georgie, go shotgun.

I sit right behind Georgie Grosso's seat because.

From there, I'm going to choose where I think is comfortable to shoot him in the

head.

We're driving down this quiet road.

And he's laughing and I'm laughing.

As we're having that banter, somewhere in the back of your conscience, you're

saying, am I going to do this really?

Am I going to take this guy's life?

And then the other side of me is saying,

You promised.

You don't obey this order.

Somebody I trust is going to kill me too.

And I'm nervous.

Can I really do this?

I put one into the chamber.

Do it.

Don't do it.

Just do it.

He's going to get killed one way or another.

I'm not getting killed for this guy.

I finally picked up the gun.

I stuck it around the headrest.

Nobody said anything.

It kind of really hit me.

Wow, this guy's gone.

I really killed this guy.

As I look back on it, that was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life.

You just killed yourself with that bullet, although you're not in the

You just destroyed your life.

After I hit Georgie Grasso, Gotti congratulated me on it and said that

are going to change for me dramatically.

I'm directly working for John Gotti now.

I got elevated to street ball.

He's in the highest honors in the Gambino Mafia family. You can get who is

unprecedented because I'm an Albanian.

I was treated by Gotti.

as one of his family members and i believed by being a good soldier to him

looking at him as a second father i would be untouchable like i own the city

one

day i went to see a guy in my crew and this girl answered the door she

was vexing she had a glow on her eyes she was hot

I said, hi, I'm looking for your brother.

She just closes the door.

And I got a kick out of the spunk she had. And I turn around, I'm like, well,

I'm going to date this girl.

I speak to her brother, and they give me her name, Claudia.

And we start dating.

She's a homebody, old -fashioned Italian girl.

And she understood the life and what I did.

She's not that stupid to ask me questions.

This is wife material.

At this point, the late 80s, it was the high point of my mafia career.

I'm making millions.

I bought a 15 -acre piece of property.

I was lucky enough to have two sons with Claudia, Johnny Jr.

and Matthew.

I was always looking forward to have a large family of boys, so I was very

excited and happy.

One second, you're laughing, and all of a sudden, you get that phone call,

and there's no more joking.

You go into that closet, you get whatever guns you need.

I need to go kill somebody.

I was blindly loyal to Gotti. Whatever he asked me to do, I did.

I went from being Gotti's personal enforcer to being Gotti's walking

I never really thought about why am I able to do this so well and not

flinch.

Why am I able to be a killer?

I realized it was something that I was trained for since I'm a kid. I watched

people get beat. I watched people die. I got used to it.

Oh, no way.

One day I'm watching TV and playing with my son.

John Gotti has been arrested. It came across on the news that Gotti, the boss

the family, has been arrested for murder, for extortion, for bookmaking,

tax evasion, and a slew of other crimes, and is facing a life sentence.

It was the father figure to me. I was devastated. I felt bad.

But then I heard that they had wiretaps on Gotti, that he was talking a lot on

these tapes about.

Things that we know we're not supposed to talk about.

They had guys that I knew flipping and giving evidence.

This was the moment when the House of Cards come tumbling down for the mafia

the Gambino family.

And me, personally, I know I got problems now.

I'm a target from every enemy the Gottis have.

It was a war out there.

One evening, we're watching TV.

My alarm goes off.

I see several guys coming into my property to kill me or kill my family.

Either because of retaliation of somebody I shot and killed, forgotten,

because I was a symbol, forgotten.

The first time in my life, I was the hunted, not the hunter.

This is somebody trying to kill my baby, my family.

I put him in the main bedroom closet.

I try to keep them calm.

And

I

told them to sit tight.

I'm looking at them thinking this could be the last time I see them, but I don't

let them know that.

And now my senses and my adrenaline's running.

to get outside to protect my family.

I'm thinking about the only thing I can do is tell the world I was trying to

kill my family or hurt my family.

This is what I do for a living.

All I'm thinking about is my family's safety.

My thoughts were to keep them away from the house.

Finally, the gunfire stopped on their end.

I went back into my house to make sure everybody was okay.

And I'm steaming

because they came to kill my family or me and my house.

It should have been a wake -up call for me. I should have walked away.

I should have left the Gotti and the mob behind.

I still had the soldier mentality.

I couldn't abandon my post, I guess.

When I woke up the next morning, I understood I'm being hunted now.

Not just in the FBI, but the mob.

I had to act different. I had to take precautions that I didn't take before.

When I started my car, I had to make sure it didn't blow up.

I'm on high alert constantly.

I answered my phone.

It was a cop named Ernie. He was my go -to guy.

He says, you're going to get hit with several murder charges.

You need to go on the run.

The last thing in the world I wanted to do was leave my kids, my family.

I chopped my arms off first.

But I have to protect the mafia, I have to protect Gotti, and I have to protect

myself.

I knew I had to leave.

I didn't tell my kids or my family was gone.

Too hard to say goodbye to any of them.

Kiss them goodbye while they're asleep.

I sacrificed their life and mine for the mob.

I could never get that back, and I'll never forget it.

I know I have to get out of the country right away.

I thought maybe I can lose the trail of the United States if I went into

Venezuela.

I felt there may be a watch list on me to leave from where I live.

So I wanted to leave from the airport in Florida.

While I'm in the airport, you're trying to keep your nerves under control.

Don't look suspicious.

Look like you're comfortable.

But in that reality, you're screaming inside.

I'm handing my passport.

For the woman, she's really looking at me.

Does she know something?

In my heart, I can hear it in my ears.

If they get me, I'm finished.

I'm going to get a life sentence.

Maybe I'm facing the death penalty.

She goes, step forward.

And she hands it back.

It's a relief, but it's not because I know I'm going through the x -ray

And I have $60 ,000 strapped around my waist in a money belt.

And my legs are real heavy, like cements in them.

The guy looks at me and he's going to grab me.

And he said, do you have anything in your pocket?

I go dig in my pocket and I let out a breath of air.

And he says, yeah, that's fine.

Go ahead.

The feeling was incredible.

I wanted to scream inside that I got away.

As I move around in Venezuela, I'm staying in touch with my cop friend,

And he tells me that Interpol has a search out for me.

So I had my hair cut.

I wore different type of sunglasses.

And I try to give a different appearance so I can get the tail of Interpol off

me.

I decide.

I can't sit in one spot.

It's not safe.

I got to keep moving.

I was nervous, anxious, paranoid.

Will somebody notice me?

I leave Venezuela, and I go to Cuba, and then from Cuba I go to Colombia.

I'm nonstop moving.

And I was miserable, but I was free.

I'd walk in the street wondering who's following me.

I couldn't make friends.

I couldn't talk to anybody.

I'd see families in the park, and I'd rather get stabbed or hit with a bat

the pain of watching other families playing and hugging and kissing,

what my kids are doing.

Do they miss me?

I want to make that phone call to my family.

But I know there's wiretaps, so I can't call.

And I just think about where my life's going to go like this, from motel to

motel, no friends, no family.

And I realized I'm in prison.

I'm just not in jail yet.

I've been from country to country now for almost a year.

I travel to Brazil now.

I finally found a place that felt a little bit like home.

I actually started thinking that maybe I could build my new life here.

And I can bring my kids to me. And I can bring Claudia to me.

The fantasy of it stayed in my head.

Maybe I can make that happen.

One day I'm walking across the shoreline.

I look up.

And I see helicopters.

Something's wrong.

And then it hit me.

It's complete quiet.

And this is Copacabana.

It's not possible.

And as I'm looking up, I don't want to look down.

Because I know when I look down, my life's over.

Oh, my God.

There's got to be a way out. I always find a way out.

And it was like somebody already shot me.

I knew it was over.

And it was just done.

The FBI told me, you can go back to the United States, give them the information

of the mafia, and you won't go to jail.

I figured that if I stay...

There's a chance they don't have the evidence to send me back, so I'll put up

whatever I have to to stay loyal to the mob still and fight it.

Big mistake.

We're going to Ari Franco to prison.

It's got a reputation of murder, torture, very violent.

I know I'm heading for hell.

When I enter the prison, as soon as I hit that landing, you hear everybody

screaming to me.

Gringo.

Gringo Americano. Gringo Mafioso.

I heard enough stories and rumors of guys getting killed here every day.

They stop me outside the cell, and they tell me, take off your clothes.

I'm taking my shirt off.

And the next thing I know, this isn't the United States.

This isn't, I'm going to call my lawyer. This isn't the mafia.

And I lost all rank here.

I know I'm in hell now.

I'm handcuffed.

From behind, I'm chained.

Being brought out to the courtyard.

The courtyard's full of glass.

They told me, take my shoes off.

And they tell me, walk.

And I'm petrified to step on that glass.

And they push me to walk.

And they're all laughing.

This is a pain that I can't stand.

I want to beg them, please let me stop.

And then finally they tell me to stop.

I'm like, thank God.

And then all of a sudden.

He said, Gringo, you're going to die today.

I think this is it.

I think about praying.

Before I get a word out, you see a picture of your kids,

a picture of Claudia, and then I get another.

I thought God's paying me back for the hurt and torture and crimes I committed.

It's my turn to endure the pain.

I desperately wanted to talk to Claudia and my kids.

I managed to get a smuggled phone.

from one of the inmates in my cell.

Hello?

John?

Is that you?

And all she kept saying was, all they're talking about is all these people you

killed, all these people you shot, the mafia. John, is this true?

The more she cried, the more guilt they felt.

And I said, please, don't cry.

I betrayed my family. I chose the mafia over them.

And that was my decision.

Days turn into weeks.

And weeks turn into months.

In jail in Brazil, it taught me a new torture.

It was not just the physical, but it was the threat of the mental torture.

You don't know what they're going to do to you.

I'm still fighting extradition.

I had no idea when I was going to get out of this hellhole.

After two and a half years of torture, of living in these conditions,

the military police come to get me.

I step out myself.

The FBI agent's waiting for me.

And he just smirks at me.

Hey, John.

They said you're being extradited back to the United States.

Your mafia friends have been meeting with the feds.

I couldn't believe it. Guys are ratting on me.

I left my kids.

I was tortured. I was willing to die to stay loyal to a life that these guys

won't stay loyal to. What an idiot I am.

I believed in the American mafia, the ways of loyalty no matter what till

When I said those words to Gotti, I meant them. I lived by them.

The FBI told me you could be facing a death penalty, John.

Either that or you give information on your friends.

I told the FBI, I'm not telling you anything.

Even if you give me the death penalty.

Even though I was betrayed by the mob, I'm still loyal to this life.

That's how crazy I was.

How stupid I was. I don't really think about that every day, what the hell I

thinking.

I was taken to Falkenberg prison, taken to isolation.

The FBI didn't want me to talk to my friends, not the mafia, to anybody.

I'm on 24 -hour surveillance seven days a week.

This was worse than being in prison in Brazil because I knew this is what I'm

going to live like the rest of my life.

I had no chance to beat this case.

And I had no chance of freedom anymore.

This was the final stop for me.

This is life and possibly death.

And all I had to do was say, okay, I'll talk.

And it would have ended.

But I believed in the life. I believed in the mafia.

And I just would die first before talking against them.

It was about close to four years I haven't seen my kids or Claudia, and I

desperate to see them again.

Finally, a visit day arrived.

When they come in, my sons, I couldn't believe the size of them.

You hold your heart to them. You kiss the glass.

You tell them to put their hands there.

I have.

A fantasy of telling how much I love them and them telling me the same thing.

And expect them all to jump back the way things were before for me.

I'm looking at Claudia, who couldn't make eye contact with me.

And she blurts out crying, I can't do this anymore.

You left us.

You chose the wrong family. Look what they did to you.

And walk out of the room.

I was trying to act strong for my kids.

But my other son said, Mommy tells you the truth.

How can you leave us and choose them?

You hurt us. You hurt Mom.

I love you, but I got to leave too.

That was it.

I wanted to die.

There's no way I could take that decision back.

I sacrificed my world for the Gottis.

I started to reflect.

What's wrong with me?

I love those kids so much.

Why would I choose John Gotti over my kids?

And I started to think about when I was that little kid in the deli and how this

innocent kid became a criminal.

All that killing, all that violence, all that pain that I justified

that I was just being a good, loyal soldier was a lie.

Everything I did was just evil.

hammer finally dropped.

It wasn't being honorable.

I was being a sucker.

I finally let it go.

I was going to do the right thing and talk to the government.

I told the FBI everything I knew about the murders I committed, who I did the

murders for, John Gotti.

In return, I got a reduced sentence of 10 years for murder and racketeering.

When I look back at it now, I want to say how sorry I am for my past, how

I am for the families of the victims of mine.

I was ashamed of what I did, and I wanted to change it.

I promised myself that I was going to spend the rest of my life atoning for my

sins.

I wish there was a way I could take back all the violence, all the pain, all the

killing.

I sold my soul to the devil.

How do I retract the past?

There's a lot of times that I don't sit here telling this. Well, I'm a tough

guy. You know what? I cry like everybody else. I'm determined to teach these

kids.

The reality of the mafia.

It's not glamorous.

It's not good.

It's not happy.

It's a completely dead -end street, and it destroys lives.

I gave up my father for them. I gave up my kids for them. I gave up my life for

them.

And it was the stupidest thing I ever did in my life, and I'm going to make

another kid doesn't do it.