Sammy "The Bull" Gravano lived by the Mafia's code of loyalty for years, but secretly recorded footage of John Gotti — and what Gravano says came next ultimately convinced him the oath was dead and it was time to switch sides.
"I said, 'Okay.' And I walked away," Gravano recalled on the "Hang Out With Sean Hannity" podcast.
"Well, as I walked away, I said, 'F--- the Mafia, f--- the oath and f--- John Gotti — I'm switching sides. He wants to play chess with me. Let's play chess.'"
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At the center of that decision were secretly recorded conversations in which Gotti discussed the Castellano hit and other mob activity, recordings Gravano said initially left him frustrated with the boss.
Gravano said Gotti's loose talk initially angered him, but the final straw came later.
"At first, I was annoyed in a way, like, man, you don't know when to shut your f---ing mouth," he said. "But it went beyond that."
Gravano said the situation escalated after their arrests, when Gotti sought to control the lawyers and Gravano learned how the defense planned to address the tapes before a jury.
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"They're going to turn around, including your lawyer, and say to the jurors, 'You heard the tapes. Sammy's a monster. Killed all these people, took over the businesses and everything. Poor John Gotti. You hear him complaining on the tape. It's not him. It's him,'" Gravano recalled.
The strategy, as Gravano described it, reflected a deeply ingrained Mafia mentality: "The boss must go free" — even if that meant casting him as the fall guy.
After that exchange, Gravano said, he walked away and resolved to cooperate with the government.
He would later learn that Gotti's intentions toward him were much more sinister.
"I find this out way later, so it's not the reason I cooperated – but I find out later he's going to take me out," Gravano recalled.
"But he wants Frankie [LoCascio] to go around to the captains and explain Sammy has lost his mind. He's really killing all kinds of f---ing people. It's crazy," Gravano added.
In his wide-ranging interview with Sean Hannity, Gravano also pulled back the curtain on a life spent inside one of America's most notorious crime families — from taking the Mafia's blood oath and participating in 19 murders to helping orchestrate the infamous hit on Gambino boss Paul Castellano.
Watch the full "Hang Out With Sean Hannity" interview with Sammy "The Bull" Gravano on iHeartRadio, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
