Say Hello to the Ex-Mafia Gangster - Larry Formato
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Today on Unlocked, I am so excited because this is a little different than what we normally do. One of the most fascinating human beings on my podcast, and you get to hear it firsthand from him. And the world, I feel like, especially the past 10 years, has been fascinated with the mob. It's just a fascination from the Sopranos, the Godfather,

All the shows that have come out that we've got to learn and kind of have a little insight into the mob. And today I have Larry from Auto On. Welcome. Thank you. Glad to be here. So we had dinner last night. We did. And I got to know you a little bit more. Yes. And it was the most fascinating dinner I think I've ever had. Seriously, the most fascinating dinner. So

We'll kind of jump right into it. I kind of want to start from the beginning though. So well, first you have your book. I do. Okay. The title is? Connected by Larry Formato. Yes. So you can find it. Where can people find it? Amazon. All those outlets. Okay. So Connected by Larry Formato. And it kind of tells your whole life story. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. So starting from the very beginning,

Let's start from the beginning as a kid. Yeah. And your story there, just your upbringing, how you grew up. Yeah, so I grew up in a pretty poor family. My father worked in a wire factory and I was a sick kid. I had rheumatic fever when I was young. So they didn't expect me to live past 15, I don't think, somewhere around there. And I was pretty much bedridden my younger years.

So my mother dragged me to Canada to a cathedral. And what I remember of it is there's just a bunch of stairs. And we went up these stairs on our knees. And at the top of the stairs, when you get to the top of the stairs, there's crutches and other things that are left up there from people that were crippled.

and supposedly received their cure okay so here i am this little kid i don't know what the hell we're doing you know i'm just i'm doing what my mother told me to do you know my knees are killing me and i didn't really want to be doing it anyway so she said oh you got to just say prayers and ask you know god to cure you okay i'll do it mom anyway so we did that and um

I never had a rheumatic fever after that or any effects from it. No way. Yeah, so that was like the first miracle in my life. Yeah. People have them. I've been blessed to have more than one, but you know, that was it. So you were always really a fighter. I was. You had to overcome a lot. I grew up in East Orange, New Jersey. And when we left East Orange, we were the last white family on the block. So I used to fight my way to school and home from school.

Yeah. So, you know, it was just a natural thing for me. And then you ended up, you got married at 18. I did. Okay. So you got married super young and that journey, you kind of jumped right into it. You got married, you had a kid and then you really, I feel like you really felt the struggle then. I did. I was working in the, uh, auto body industry as an auto body man. And, um,

you know that's not easy work but it was a living to some degree yeah and i was never one to work for anyone so i decided heck i could do this on my own and i just rented a little garage and put up a sign and you know center auto body and started my own little auto body shop and so then you went from auto body to the stock market i did um a fellow that you know i went to school with who was pretty much of a

can we say up yeah go for it anyway he was a up and uh so he came in with a porsche he drove in a porsche and uh i said to him where did you steal this car from and uh he says my car i said no let's not get the out of here it's not your car you know so he finally convinced me it was his car and i asked him what he did he said it was a stockbroker and i i don't know what a stockbroker is

So I questioned him a little bit more. I asked him where he worked. He told me he worked in Englewood, New Jersey. And I said, well, man, can we go see your office? And he said, oh, sure. So it was my body shop. So I'm guessing he thought I might have had money so he could make me a client. I don't know. But I went along with whatever he was saying. I just wanted to get to his office. So there we went in his car and his Porsche and my work clothes, paint all over my shirt and pants and work boots and

We go into this office and there's all these guys sitting behind desks and they all had suits and ties and, you know, people back there playing with their nails and talking on the telephone. Yeah. I still don't know what the hell they're doing. Anyway, we got to go meet this guy's boss, John Engel was his name and

Man, you know, I had the image of my first meeting with John embedded in my mind for the rest of my life forever. He sat behind this big desk. He smoked Kent cigarettes one right after the other. Had a gold watch on and a gold bracelet on the other hand and a big gold chain around his neck. And he said, what are you doing here? I said, well, I got to tell you. I said, you know, this guy here, you know, is driving a Porsche.

and claims he's making all this money. And I don't know what the hell you guys do, but I know one thing for sure. He's a fuck up. I could definitely do it better than he could do it. And I want to do whatever he's doing, but better.

And the guy liked me. How could you not? Yeah, well. But yeah, so he gave me a chat. And he said, you have to pass a Series 7 exam, which is given by the government. I said, oh, yeah, I can do that. I can pass this exam. I didn't pass high school. I bribed my way out of high school. And I did. I bribed my way out of high school. So I said, I can do this. So yeah.

I started using this guy's name and sat behind a desk and they threw a phone book at me and they said, this is where you're going to get all your clients from. And I said, what am I supposed to do? Well, you open the phone book and you start calling each person in the phone book and you sell them stock. I didn't know what stock even was, but that's how it started. Yeah. You know, back then, I didn't have a car.

I had an auto body shop but I didn't have a car. I still find that to be the funniest thing ever. I'm going to work on cars. I just don't have one. I didn't. I swear to you. I didn't have a car. I didn't have any money. So I went and I got my father's suit and his shirt and his tie and his shoes and I hitchhiked. You hitchhiked. How far? About 30 miles. Every day. Doesn't sound far when you say 30 miles. Oh, it's far. But I was in the country and Englewood was in the city.

So I had to take these back roads and then get on Route 80, the highway, and then hitchhike the rest of the way and then get off the exit and then walk the rest of the way to the office. Yeah. So there was nothing easy about my journey every day, but I did it. And I did that for six months. Because there was such, you had such a desire for success. Yeah.

I did. I had a burning desire to make money, a lot of money. I watched my father work himself to death literally. And I knew, I just knew that was not going to be me. So yeah, I had a burning desire to make a lot of money and I was willing to do whatever it was going to take to do that. And so you had to, you worked every day cold calling. I worked seven days a week.

from 7 in the morning till 11 at night when people started hanging up the phones on me because it was too late. Okay. And then I would leave and go home and start all over again. And so then you had to take your test. I did. And you speak about that in the book. I do. And the journey to passing that test. Was fairly simple because my cousin Big John, who we talk about in the book,

had a lot of connections and he was connected enough to be able to get me a copy of this test. They were given three tests back then. And so I had a copy of all three. So I sat at nighttime with my mom and she would just read me the answers and I would memorize them to all the tests. So you did have to, I mean, that's a lot to memorize. It is, but I still didn't know what the hell I was doing. You know, I memorized the answers. I knew the answers, but I didn't know what they meant. Okay. So then after,

Now you're basically like the Wolf of Wall Street before he ever came along. No, he was, he, he, he's an asshole.

See, I love that. He definitely is an asshole. Because that's when people hear this. That's kind of what they will associate it with is the Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah. If I wasn't in jail while he was doing his bullshit, he would be coming to me and bringing me checks every week. Because you were, you had no idea how successful you were becoming at that time.

Not when I was not when I was first starting out. You know, after a while, I knew how successful I was. Well, the moment like we were talking about last night, you said the moment you realized, holy shit, like I'm actually good at this was when you

main guy took you to buy suits and a car and all these things well i didn't really know how good i was until he did that yeah you know um so he called me in his office one day and he said um you know i i have to ask you you know i i see you coming to work every day and i know you wear the same fucking suit every day you know in the brokerage business everybody says fuck by the way so

it's just common language uh so he says i know you wear the same fucking suit every day and same shoes and same shirt and you know what the fuck are you doing i know you don't i know you don't drive here how do you get here so you know i i i thought i was getting fired so i just owned up to it i said i hitchhike here that's how i get yeah you know i don't have any money i don't have a car you know but i'm dedicated i want to make a lot of money

He said, okay, I'll be right, I'll go back to your desk. So I knew he was going to come out and fire me. I just sat there waiting for the hammer to come down. And because, you know, they don't want guys that are bums. You know, they want guys that drive nice cars, that wear nice suits, you know. Yeah. So I knew I was out. He came out and he said, come on, we're going for a ride.

So he took me for a ride. We went clothes shopping. I said, I can't pay you back all this money. There's no way I can do this. I'm not taking this. Yeah. And he said, no, you're good. You already earned it. Don't worry about it. You work pretty damn hard. I said, I don't know about that. And he said, oh, no, this is all yours. So basically, he bought me shirts, ties, socks. The whole thing. Suits. You name it, he bought it. And we left there. And then we stopped at a car lot. And he showed me my new car.

So, that's when I knew that I was successful. I went from nothing, literally, to that day getting a quarter of a million dollars in my pocket and a new car. Wow. Yeah. And so, at that point in time, you knew this was going to be your meal ticket out. Yeah. I was on my way. And it came from nothing short of a lot of hard work. And at this time...

Really? You were doing everything by the book. Yeah. Oh yeah. At this point in time. Yeah. And then when would you say, when did you go from being a normal naive kid to now I'm being introduced into the world of the mob? Well, that came years later. Um,

The world of the mob. Well, I was always introduced to the world of the mob. I was born in East Orange. My mother and father were from Orange. And all my relatives were from Orange, New Jersey. So basically, that's the hub. Newark, New Jersey, Orange, New Jersey is the hub of what was going on in the mob world. So I always was on the outside looking in, but knew that it always existed for sure.

And it wasn't until I really tasted success that I started to get bothered a little bit. I had a guy come to my office one day and his name was Big Jim. Big Jim. Who knows? You know, I don't know. Anyway, Big Jim. And he told me I owed him $20,000. And he told me it was full of shit. And he told me I had to pay him or things bad were going to happen to me. So I called Big John.

And I said, this guy came to the office, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, he threatened me and he wants 20 grand. And so Big John took me to back to Orange, New Jersey. Back to Orange, New Jersey. And we went to a cleaners, a dry cleaners. And we went into this dry cleaners and we went to the back room of dry cleaners. And there was red accessory and red.

He's just the epitome of what a wise guy looks like. I'm looking like a nice guy over here. I know I look good. Yeah. He for sure. You see him, you know, he's a wise guy. And so what is a wise guy? Well, wise guy is a made guy. He's he's he's the man. So he is like officially wise.

a mob guy oh he's definitely a mob guy yeah okay so you walk in you see him and i see him and the first thing he says to john it was kind of like a test i guess i don't really know but he says to big john he said uh i told you never bring legitimate guys around me so i looked at him and i looked at john i'm thinking okay let's get out of here like like right now yeah

And then Red said to me, tell me what's going on. What's the problem? And then I told him very quickly, I said, this guy, Big Jim, told me I own 20 grand. You know, I don't know what to do about it. He said, I'm going to tell you what to do about it. He said, when Big Jim comes to see you, this is what you say to him. You tell him to go fuck himself. I said, what? You know, what do I do? He said, you tell him to go fuck himself and you tell him Red said so.

I said, okay. So I did that. Yeah. And I left. And I said to John, I said, am I really supposed to tell this? And John says, do you know what just happened? I said, no. I know that that guy told me to go tell somebody to go fuck themselves. He said, he gave you permission to use his name. Do you know how big that is? No one has permission to use names. You don't use names in the mob world. You don't drop names.

But Red gave me permission to use his name. And that's big. That's really big. So sure enough, Big Jim did come. And he said, I'm here for my money. I said, well, I got a message for you. He said, yeah, what's that? Go fuck yourself and get the fuck out of my office. And Red said to say hello.

And that's all I did. That's what happened. And you know, in the wise guy world, you know, it's a small world. And word travels fast around places. And so Big Jim went and did his homework. And he found out that Red, that I was with Red at that point. Red was protecting me. And that was the end of the 20 grand.

No kidding. Yeah. So it's a, so then at that point, that was kind of your introduction. That was kind of my introduction. Yeah. And I never heard from Red for a year, for a whole year. I never heard another word from him. And then after that year...

I was in my office and Big John came to my office, said, "There's somebody outside that wants to see you." I said, "John, you didn't even come here. You didn't tell me you were coming. I'm busy. Get the fuck out of here." "What are you doing?" You know, I can't just go outside and talk to people whenever you show up. He said, "You better go outside."

I said, I'm not doing it. He said, listen, my man, you are going outside right now. So I get up, I grab my jacket like I'm really pissed off and I slam the door open. And I did an imitation of Jackie Gleason, which was hummina, hummina, hummina, hummina when I saw Red standing there. And Red said, come on, let's go for a walk. It was winter and he had a long, he had a long cashmere, brown cashmere coat on, tan.

And we locked arms and we started walking down the sidewalk. And he gave me this speech, you know, and he told me how rich I was and how powerful, you know, I am. Because at this time, how successful were you? I probably had maybe $30 million, $30 million.

Oh, no big deal. I own my own brokerage firm. So yeah, I was pretty successful. Okay. So you're walking down the street. Rolls Royce, limousines, airplanes. Yeah, I was pretty successful. Okay. Just, okay. Pretty successful. So you're walking down the street. And he told me that people are watching me. People are going to try to latch onto me. But with him, I would have more than just money. That I would have power and people would fear me. That he wants to be my partner.

And then he said, think about it and left me. Okay. And how long did you think about this? About five minutes. Do you wish you would have thought a little longer? About five minutes. Okay. Yeah. And you said, I'm in. Yeah. I mean, I thought about it and I said, you know, Wall Street, you know, stocks, the mafia. Fuck yeah, man, I'm in. And so...

At that point in time, you're in. Now, isn't part of the mafia, like you had all this money, but you're kind of expected to pay it forward, right? Yeah, absolutely. If you're in. If you're in, yeah. Yeah. So at that point you were in and what were the next steps? Well, basically the next step was, you know, I met with Red for the first time, you know, as a meeting, a serious meeting. Yeah.

And he started giving me the rules, the what to do's and the what not to do's. And basically, you know, he asked me, does anyone owe me money? And I said, yeah, there's one guy that owes me money, but there's nothing we can do about him. And he said, well, why is that? I said, because he's with the Chin. And Red said to me, how do you know that name? And then I had to tell him this whole story about this sit down that we had in New York.

With this guy, Johnny Fats, who said he was with the Chin. Who's the Chin? The Chin is the boss of the Genovese crime family. So there's like four or five major crime families, correct? Yeah. Okay, and they are the Genovese. Genovese, Lucchese. Yeah, Lucchese. Gambino. Okay. So those are the major, that's kind of like what runs the whole mafia world. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

So Red didn't say anything. He just, you know, passed that one by. And I was happy to pass it by because I didn't want anything to do with Johnny Fats and that whole deal that cost me money. Yeah. So, but later on, wise guys have a memory and it's not short. They never forget. Ever.

So you got to read my book, honestly. There's good stories in it. It is. It's great. So I'll just tell you. So later on... Well, yeah, like you said, they never forget. They don't. So there was a part in your book to where Red had a guy held out of a window by his feet. Yeah. So basically, this guy...

owed Red and his partners some money. He kept promising to pay and pay and pay and pay. So Red and Lenny Macaluso, Lenny worked for Red. He was like an enforcer. Tough guy, very tough guy. And so it was actually Lenny that was holding him out the window and it was Red telling him what was going to happen to him. Oh. Yeah. So the guy was definitely scared for his life. And he went to the cops.

And Red went to jail and the guy died from rat poisoning. That's what happened. That's just what happened. That's exactly what happened. I don't know how the man got rat poisoned. Yeah. That's so, like you said, they have a very long memory. They do have a long memory. So I had a nightclub in Whippany, New Jersey, a very popular nightclub. All the wise guys used to come to it. Mm-hmm.

There was a hotel next to it, Holiday Inn, one of those. And I used to stay in one of the rooms next to the hotel. And I was there with my girlfriend. And the phone rings in the hotel room early. It was early in the morning. It was like, I don't know, 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock in the morning. And it's red. He said, I'm over here at the club. Come over. I'm thinking to myself, uh-oh, this is not good. This is definitely trouble for me. Yeah. Yeah.

So I go over there and she's there with this other guy, this burly, deep voiced guy. And he says, this is my partner, Joe. And Joe says, so this is the guy, huh? And yeah, Red said, yep, he's the guy. So I knew right away who this guy was. I never met him face to face, but I knew who he was. Yeah. And it was Jody Indian. So Red said, come on, let's go.

And I said, well, where are we going? He said, we're going for a ride. And I didn't like that at all. Not even a little bit. So we get outside and Red gives me his keys and said, you drive. I was very relieved at that point that I wasn't sitting in the passenger seat and Joe was in the backseat because that's what I thought was happening. Okay. So we get in the car and I said, well, where are we going? He said, we're going to New York. I said, well, what are we going to do in New York?

He said, we're going to go see that scumbag motherfucker. I said, who's that? The guy that you told me we couldn't collect the money from. No. So this is a year later from that little story that I told him about at my first meeting at the restaurant about the guy that owed us the money that we couldn't touch. And then Joe says, yeah, and the chin said to go choke that motherfucker. Oh, no. Absolutely. Swear, that's how it happened. Holy cow. Yeah. So...

Wow. That is, you never know what you're going to get in that life. For sure. You never know. You never know what you're getting for sure. And so when you got very immersed in this whole life, you had crazy connections. You, what, there was a connection to Frank Sinatra. Right. And what was that?

Well, we were building a... We decided that there was casinos in Atlantic City and there was casinos in Las Vegas. And we decided that we could push legislation to get casinos in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. So we spread this rumor, this lie...

that Jilly Rizzo, Frank Sinatra's road manager, partner, and bodyguard is building this big hotel casino in the Poconos. Well, you're not allowed to use the word casino, but we did. And so we decided to do a stock campaign, and the company was called Worldwide Ventures. And so Worldwide, for the most part, was just a bullshit company.

And I was out of the stock brokerage business at this time. And I was the president of Worldwide Ventures. And I still had all my connections with all the brokers and all the brokerage firms and all the traders. But now I was a powerful guy. Because you had the mafia behind you. I pretty much ruled the street. And nobody, but nobody fucked with me back then. Nobody. So Red and Joe were in the car. We get to New York.

And, you know, there was a movie. I just, for the life of me, can't think of the name of it right at the moment. But, excuse me, it was with Kirk Douglas and somebody else where they were gangsters, old-time gangsters. Okay. You know, they were portraying these guys and walking the way they walked and all that. Well, I was walking up the streets of New York with Joe and Red and

And I was just in awe. I mean, these guys just, everybody just moved away from them when they walked. It was just something to see. I mean, they just, they had it. And people knew that they had it, you know? And I was just like, I was just like, I want to be them. That's what it was. I mean, I just, that was it. That was it. That's what I wanted to be. Unlocked is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably

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So we went there and we got to this guy's office and the secretary who knew me well took a look at them and said, let me get, let me get Peter. This is the guy that owed us the money. So you go into the office. Yeah. So let me get Peter. Yeah. So she goes and she gets Peter and he comes up front and, hey Larry, what's going on? And he looks at Joe and he looks at Red and

And he says, well, come to my office. Come to my office. And he's a little nervous. Yeah. He doesn't know what to expect. Peter smoked Paul Malls. What's that? Paul Mall cigarettes. Okay. Yeah, I mean, you're young. You wouldn't know those things. No. But anyway, that's what he smoked. Paul Mall non-filtered cigarettes. And when we got into the office, Red said to Peter...

So you like to threaten people, especially women. And you're going to go and shoot up everybody's office. You're going to have people killed and you're going to throw people out windows. You're a tough guy, huh? Peter's, oh, no, no, no, no. I'm not a tough guy. He said, well, how about if I throw you out the fucking window? Oh, no, no. You got the wrong idea. No, I don't have the wrong idea. Get Johnny Fats on the fucking phone and get him here right now. So that's what occurred. And, um,

Peter's boy, I just need a little time to get him. Okay, get him. So we sat there and watched Peter smoke one palm all after the other, burning his fingers as he's smoking them. In about 20 minutes or so, 30 minutes maybe, Johnny Fats showed up. What fucking trouble did you get me into now? And, you know, Red said, shut the fuck up. Who the fuck do you think you are? You know, that's how these guys talk, you know what I mean? It's normal. It's normal, yeah. And, uh...

let's get out of here. We're going to go make some phone calls. So we left the office and we went downstairs and there was a little coffee shop. And we sat in the back of this coffee shop. But on the way to the coffee shop in the elevator, Johnny Fats says to Pete, what kind of fucking trouble did you get me into? What did you do to me? So Red smacks Johnny Fats right in the fucking mouth and said, shut the fuck up, tough guy. I don't want to hear another word out of you until you get your people here.

And so that's this. We're in a coffee shop and Johnny Fats is in the phone booth making phone calls. And we're waiting 30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour. And then finally two guys come in and they come up and they give Joe a kiss and they give Red a kiss and they give me a kiss, you know. And they just look at Johnny Fats and Peter. So...

They sit down. What's the problem? Red shortly tells them that Peter owes me $450,000 and he's going to pay it. And they said, and then Joe said, but you guys, you don't have the stripes to even be here. Go get your boss. So they had to go to the phone booth and they had to call their boss. And the guy finally showed up. He was all the way in Long Island and he had to come all the way to New York. And so basically the deal was settled. We had a big sit down there.

Peter just about died a thousand deaths. Johnny Fats was held responsible for all the money to make sure that Peter paid me back. Peter apologized profusely to my sister and other people that he threatened to kill. And we got our money. So you settled the deal? We settled the deal. And then I was like ultimately impressed.

with Joe and Red at that point. It was just a life you wanted more of. It was. And the other thing was that these guys used somebody's name. Remember I said I had permission to use Red's name? Well, they used a name that no one has permission to use. You just don't use... And what was it? The Chin. You just don't use that name ever. Yeah. And he used it. And so the Chin told Joe to go choke that motherfucker.

Yeah, so long story short, I was afraid of these guys because they were with the boss. Yeah. Not knowing the whole time that my guy is with the boss. Holy cow. So yeah, so that was it. That's the story. That's insane. Yeah, that's a good story. I like that story. Holy cow. It impressed me. That is crazy.

Yeah, that's when I knew for sure that I was with the powerhouse. Yeah. And so from that moment, when, what would you say was the first moment that you went, the first moment you started kind of creating this trail of illegal activity that you eventually went down four years later? I think when we started the worldwide deal. Mm-hmm.

Because we had all these wise guys involved. So it was me, my crew, and then we had Jilly and his crew. And Jilly was connected to little Davey Iacovetti out in Boston. And so Davey got involved in the deal representing Frank and Jilly. Okay. So it was just a mess. And the stock deal...

was going really, really well. We made a lot of money with the stock.

We took it from zero to $9. We sold 55 million shares into the market. And basically, we did it because we kept promoting that gambling was going into the Poconos. And of course, every chance we had, we dropped Sinatra's name and we dropped Jilly's name. And we had Jilly doing promotions in Arizona and Las Vegas and Palm Springs. And we used to go from Palm Springs to...

to Las Vegas, to Los Angeles, and that was our trip. Sinatra was playing at Caesars at the time. So we would go to Caesars while Sinatra was there. Then we would go to Palm Springs while Sinatra was there. Then we would go to Los Angeles while Sinatra was there. And we circled this whole thing for months and months and months as our stock kept going up and up and up.

you know so um i lived at the lermontage hotel in beverly hills and uh with george liverados who was my partner in world wide ventures and um i used to stay at the hotel and work the stocks and i used to send george out to go party with everyone and he would party with clint eastwood and you know brook shields and just you know on and on and on james khan it just never ended you know and it was just one party after another and um we spent

millions millions of dollars just entertaining people wow and what was the point of that to get them to get them in so that we could say this guy's associated with our stock that guy's associated with our company because you were really like the king of the penny stock world yeah and uh we we use their fame to promote worldwide ventures

You know because everybody wanted to be a part of it. Everyone wanted to be in the deal that Sinatra and Julie Rizzo was behind Yeah, you know and that worked perfectly for us. And so with penny stock Can you explain that what exactly it is and then how you took it from zero to nine dollars? So penny stocks usually traded back then and what's called the pink sheets. Okay, and I

back then, pink sheets were just that. They were a sheet of paper and they had a list of all the stocks on it and then the brokerage firms that were trading these stocks. So you couldn't go on a machine and look up the price of the stock. Yeah. You had to get this pink sheets that came out once a week and see who the stock market makers were and then actually pick up the phone and call that market maker and ask for the trader on that stock and find out what the price was. Hmm.

So basically they could lie to you. They could tell you whatever the price, whatever they wanted to tell you. Yeah. You know, so, and if you were buying, they had a bid and an ask. So if you were, if you're trying to sell, you'd be hitting the bid. And let's say it was $1 by $2, $1 being the bid. So you'd call them and say, I got 10,000 shares to sell at a dollar. They could just tell you, well, I'll take a hundred at a dollar and I'll take the other 9,900 for 20 cents.

So, you know, it was a world that you had to be pretty clever on how you did things. Yeah. And so then at that point, you were using your company, I guess, to manipulate the stocks, correct? Well, yeah. I mean, we didn't manipulate it to a point of, you know, we just moved the price of the stock where we wanted it to be when we wanted it to be. Okay. So, yeah. So that's manipulation. All right. You caught me. It's manipulation. You're saying that and I'm like, what?

So, basic manipulation. Okay. Got it. So, but what we did is we took World Wide Ventures off of the pink sheets and put it on NASDAQ where you can...

See who the traders are was used with machines Nasdaq machines brokerage firms everywhere and it was like going from lower class to upper class Okay, and so that really boosted the price of the stock quite a bit. Mm-hmm So then you started doing that and then What other things did you start doing that maybe crossed the line a little bit that you yours down the road?

So I had a guy that I was going to kill. Okay.

Normal. His name was Marshall Zope. And Marshall came into my brokerage firm one day and wanted to tell me about a deal. He was taking some whorehouse in Las Vegas public. Okay. And he wanted me to be the underwriter. And then I passed on the deal. It just wasn't for me at the time. I was busy doing other things and I didn't really like Marshall. Yeah. But when he left, he left with some of my letterhead from my office.

And he went out to Las Vegas and he started writing letters of intent to all these different companies that Royal Securities, which was my brokerage firm, was going to take them public. And he was charging them fees, $50,000 for the letter of intent. Yeah, so I was going to kill this guy. And I let him know that, you know, sooner or later I'm going to find you and they're going to find you in the desert and that's going to be the end of that. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I mean, it was a way of life. Yeah. It was just, that's how. That's how it was. The mafia world works. I mean, it's. That's just how it was. It's the world of organized crime. Yeah. That's how it worked. And so also too, you talk about taking companies public. Yeah. You took Popeye's public. Yeah. I was part of the selling group for Popeye's. Yeah. That, how did you do that? Um, I, you know, I had a big book.

I had a lot of clients and you know I was capable of raising just a tremendous amount of money. So my brokerage firm, I was pretty much the book even though I had a lot of brokers that worked for me. Yeah. You know I pretty much was the main sales factor behind my firm. So that's how we did it. That's insane. I had a lot of buying power. And so what year did that happen?

I think 1977. Don't hold me to it. Okay. Maybe 77, 78. I'm not even sure. Okay. I don't remember. And so now, fast forward. So you're a part of this world. You've got $30 million. Yeah. You are driving a Rolls Royce. You have the mafia behind you. So you have what no one else in Wall Street really had was the mafia behind you. And you're living a life that you...

I mean, you're loving for all intents and purposes. Yeah. I mean, I lived in a mansion. I had an airplane. I didn't fly it. I had a pilot. Yeah. But yeah, I had a pilot. And then when did it all start crashing down? So getting back to Marshall Zolp, I was going to kill him. And he was hiding from me for a lot of years. And my attorney, Morty Berger, called me one day and he said, I need you to do me a favor.

So this is my SEC attorney. So I said, yeah, of course, I'll do you a favor. What do you need? He said, Marshall is in trouble on a deal and he needs your help. I said, Marshall, like a Marshall's dope? Are you fucking kidding me? Bring him to me, please. You know, he said, no, you can't do anything to him. You got to help him. And we'll all make a lot of money on this. So, you know, one thing with this,

Most people, including wise guys, if there's an opportunity to make money, they put aside their personal feelings. Of course. So I put aside my personal feelings for Marshall. And because Morty, my close friend and attorney, asked me to do this, I did this deal for Marshall's Open. It was the chill can.

And the chill can, Marshall had promoted, he took out ads in the Wall Street Journal about this can that Coca-Cola was going to buy from him where you pop the top and it freezes in your hand. So whatever's in the can gets cold. So you don't have to carry a nice chest to the beach anymore. You know, very cool idea. That's an awesome idea. Crazy, right? So Marshall was selling stock like mad. It wasn't a real company and it wasn't a real can.

And he was printing, literally printing stock certificates out of the back room in my office. So that was like probably the most illegal of all the stock deals that I ever got involved in on the back end of the deal. And millions and millions of dollars was created through that deal. How much would you say?

I don't know. I think Marshall probably ripped maybe 20 million. Wow. That's a lot of money back then. Yeah. That's a lot of money today. Well, it was a lot of money then. So that's the deal that they busted me on. The Chilkan. They didn't bust me on World War Adventures.

They didn't bust me on any of the other deals, you know, through my years and years and years of doing deals. Yeah. They got me on that deal and on tax fraud. And so they never got you on those? No, never. Wow. They got me on Marshall's deal. They got you on Marshall's deal? Yep, the chill can.

- Holy cow. - And the way they got me. - And of course, the reason now, like you spoke about these things in your book, 'cause Statue of Limitations is gone. - Yeah, it doesn't matter. - Yeah, it doesn't matter anymore. I mean, you were really, at that point in time, like you were brilliant in what you were doing.

We were brilliant because we knew how to wield a sword. And if a particular trader at a brokerage firm didn't make the stock at the price I want him to make it, then he pretty much got scared half to death or beat half to death or something bad happened to him.

And that's when, so you got the numbers you wanted. Absolutely, because everybody knew who I was and nobody would fuck with me. And so when you went down, how did that happen? Well, I knew I was in trouble with taxes. And what, how much taxes are we talking? I don't know.

i don't even know anymore i honestly don't i don't remember because i made a deal with the tax part of it this was before i got arrested with the chill can okay so i knew i was in trouble so i had my attorney go in which is what every smart criminal should do if you know you're going to be in trouble and you know you're going to get indicted very first thing you do is get a good attorney and have him go see the u.s attorney before they come see you

That's what you should do. That's my advice. I love your advice. So anyways, so I had my attorney go to his attorney's office and find out what they wanted. So they wanted to hit me with a failure to report income. And then they charged me some crazy ass charge with stealing money from my own firm. What? Yeah. So they wanted to give me, I think, two five-year charges for failure to report income and

Okay. But it was my own firm, my own money. Yeah. I mean, they basically were telling me as I was stealing from myself. So... Welcome to the government. Quick story. I know we're on a timeline here. No, you're good. Quick story. So this is the charge. So I had this stock that I got from a guy who wanted me to promote it for him and I took a big position in it. And he died. I didn't do anything. This was straight up... He just died on his own. So...

So he dies. So I'm stuck with all this stock and I'm sitting on it and sitting on it and sitting on it. I own a brokerage firm. So I had this young kid that I groomed to become a stockbroker. And I knew his family and I knew he had a grandfather that lived in Connecticut and his grandfather was like 97 years old and getting ready to kick the bucket. So I had him take all this stock, go to his grandfather and I had him take his grandfather to Merrill Lynch and deposit all the stock into a Merrill Lynch account.

and then sell it. Well, there was only one market maker in the stock, and that was my brokerage firm, Royal Securities. So if any other broker would call and ask me about that stock, I would tell them that it was no-bid,

$3 offer, which means we don't want to buy any, but we're willing to sell you a bunch at three bucks. Yeah. But if Merrill Lynch called, we would say it was $3 bid and no offer, meaning we'll buy all you have, but we don't want to sell you any. So this kid takes his grandfather to Merrill Lynch with all this stock, deposit it into Merrill Lynch's account and tells Merrill Lynch to sell it all.

So of course Merrill Lynch is going to sell it. Also who do they sell it to? They sell it to me. So it's my stock under this kid's grandfather's name. Yeah. They sell it to my brokerage firm. My brokerage firm pays for the stock and then this kid's grandfather gets the check. So what did I do wrong? What'd you do wrong? Well, I'm going to tell you what I did wrong. So we had the kid's grandfather go to the bank and cash the check. They didn't want to do it.

Because how much money was it? It wasn't a lot of money. It was like $400,000, somewhere around there. Okay. But I wanted it back in cash. Well, of course you did. Yeah, we did. So we made Merrill Lynch cash the check, and then we had to wait a day for the money to get to the bank. Yeah. Because they had to order it. Wow. And of course they had to call his attorney to make the bank do it. And his attorney was me, of course. Yeah. I played the attorney when they called.

And, um, so we got the check cashed and he came back with all the cash and I gave him $50,000 for going to Connecticut for me. And he was very happy. Uh, the grandfather died. He didn't have to pay taxes. And I was very happy about that. And, and so, um, so I had the cash, my brokerage firm, uh,

I had paid for all this stock. So now my brokerage firm has the stock back again. Yeah. Right. And because my brokerage firm had the money to pay it, I just didn't want to take the money out of my firm. Yeah. And put it in my pocket. Gotcha. I didn't want to pay taxes on that. So I sold it. So now I bought it back again. So, you know, I like cars. Yes. So I restored a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible. Okay.

And I had a young guy that worked for me and I said to him, "Listen, we've got all this stock and I'm gonna give you a big commission on it. I want you to sell it for $3 a share and I'm gonna give you a dollar commission on every share you sell." So, and I said, "And on top of all of that, if you do it in two days, I'm gonna give you that Cadillac Eldorado that's out there." - Wow. - So he did it in one day. He blew out all the stock at three bucks a share. So not only did I get all the money back

I paid Kenny's grandfather, which came back to me. I got all the money back again that Royer paid for all the stock because we sold it to the public. Wow. Yeah. So that's like a complex.

Deal. Deal. Yeah. I mean, you ended up becoming the king of the penny stock market with the mafia behind you. And so that changed really Wall Street forever. Pretty much. Yeah. Pretty much. And so when you went down, how did it happen? So I made this tax deal with the U.S. government and they were going to sentence me and I knew I was going to get probation.

I mean, it was white collar crime in 1985 or 86. And that wasn't a thing. And it was not a thing back then. You know, and the worst, you know, what would I get a couple months at some camp or something, you know? Yeah. And of course, I told all my guys, you know, my boss and everyone else that, you know, I've got this tax problem that I'm going to have to, you know, face and take care of. So I had to go to a probation officer in Passaic, New Jersey to fill out this pre-sentence report bullshit.

And so I walk into this place. I was driving a Jaguar at the time. And I had a phone in my car back then. Most people didn't. Wow. But I did. Okay. And I couldn't find the place. And I'm talking to my secretary, where the fuck is this place? And she said, I can't. And she hangs up the phone. She goes, I'm thinking I had a bad connection. But she was trying to tell me. She couldn't talk to me.

I walk in and I walk past these two guys and they had ties on and jackets and I just figured they worked in probation and they just looked at me. And, you know, so I wore a hairpiece back then and that particular day was, it was a Tuesday morning and I was up late watching Monday Night Football with my son.

And I had to be down there early in the morning. I said, fuck it, I'm not going to get all dressed up or anything. I went there looking like a bum. I didn't have my hairpiece on. I had a beard. And I walked right past these guys. And then I went to the floor that I thought I was supposed to be going to. And it wasn't the right floor. So I got back on the elevator and I walked back downstairs. And I was going to look at the directory on the wall. Yeah. So when I come back out of the elevator, these same two guys, one guy says to me, Larry. And I said, fuck. Fuck.

That's not good. I know exactly what this is. And he said, I'm Mike Cahill. I'm with the FBI and you're under arrest. Wow. So they planned to get me at the probation office. That's where they wanted to arrest me. So they could arrest me there while they were raiding my office and my house and arresting everyone else that was with me. So altogether, there was 18 or 19 of us that got arrested that day.

Wow. Yeah. So Mike puts me in the back of his police car. Oh, FBI car. He said, we finally got you, Larry. I said, you don't got shit, man. Get away from me. He said, oh, no, I got you. He said, you see this? And he held up a cassette tape.

I said, yeah, I see it. He says, I said, so what? He said, well, you know, I've got this and 4,999 more just like it with you and all your friends talking on it. I got you. And that was the first time in history that they used wiretapping for a securities fraud case. That's right. My case was the very first case. How did that happen?

Well, I had a guy that worked for me, Pauli Genovese, which was not his real name, which I found out later. He was actually a Jewish kid pretending to be an Italian kid. But he was a big tough kid, you know, he was a weightlifter, you know, and I made him like my bodyguard kind of, you know, because he was a big kid. And he was a tough kid, you know, Pauli was a tough kid. And he became like my very, very close, close friend.

Well, he got arrested in Morristown one night. I didn't know about it. And he made a deal in Morristown when he got arrested. And he basically said, hey, I got somebody I can give up. And they said, yeah, well, who is it? And he said, I can give you Marshall Zope. I know he's a fugitive. And they said, who the fuck is Marshall Zope? We don't care about Marshall Zope. Come up with something better. And he said, well, how about if I give you Larry Formato? And that was it. All the bells and whistles, everything went off when he mentioned my name.

And because at that particular time, I pretty much owned Morris County. Yeah. I was the guy for Morris County. Wow. So when they arrested you. Yeah. You obviously immediately asked for your attorney. I did. I asked for Morty Berger. They said, no, you can't have him. We got him. I said, all right, how about Mark Bateman? No, you can't have him either. We got him.

Oh, how about Joe Rice? Oh yeah, we got him too. I said, is there any of my attorneys that you didn't get? Nope, we got them all and we got your whole crew. Holy cow. So what were you charged with? Bank fraud, stock fraud. And then they were going to hit me with five Ricos. One in New Jersey, one in New York, one in Florida, one in California, and one in Denver. Wow. Five Ricos, each Rico carrying 20 euros.

Holy cow. Yeah. And what was going through your mind at this time? I'm fucked. Okay. So you, and so from the time you were arrested, did you go to trial? No, I pled out. Okay. I pled out. And what was your plea? I pled out to, I think one count of bank fraud.

One count of tax evasion, our failure report, a count of stock fraud, and some other miscellaneous counts. I don't know what they were. Yeah. Anyway, when the judge decided to sentence me, he started rattling off years like they were days. And he said to me, this fucking judge, man.

He had his gavel in his hand and he said, you, Mr. Fermato, I know you are someone you know or someone that's very close to you, has all this money and I want it. And he starts banging his gavel on the thing. And he said, you are going to get 30 years in federal prison. Wow.

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One thing, though, going back a little bit that we didn't touch on was you had made all of this money. You've spoken about how you love cars. You love music. Yeah. And RCA Records comes along. Yeah. And you go to purchase RCA Records with a $55 million non-refundable deposit. Yeah. Yeah.

And they arrested you the day before you were supposed to close that deal. Yeah. So we were doing a leverage buyout on the RCA record division. I had put up $55 million of my own money to buy it, non-refundable. And then we were going to use the rest of their assets to buy them out. So it's called the leverage buyout.

And that deal was going to make me the most legitimate wise guy ever. Because that would have given me enough power in the legitimate world and enough money to just do anything I wanted to do. I had more money than the government had to fight me. They didn't have big budgets back then. So that would have made me totally legitimate and I was going to be totally out.

So I said to Joe one day, Joe the Indian, I said, you know, I'm tired of all this stock shit, man. This is going to be my last deal. The 21 Entertainment Records deal was going to be my last deal. And he said, well, you know, we have a lot of connections in the music business too. And I said, fuck, man, there's just no getting out. There's no getting out. You're stuck forever. Yeah, you're done. And so the government knew you were purchasing RCA Records. Oh, yeah, yeah. So they knew they had to stop me.

So the day before I was closing the RCA deal, that's when they arrested me. And that deal didn't go through. It never went through. And you lost $55 million. Well, a lot more than that, but yeah, just on that one deal, yeah. A lot more than that. Well, because then the government... So this judge sentenced you to 30 years. Yeah. Monetarily, what was taken?

All my assets that I acquired, houses, money, cars, everything was taken that I made in a corrupt world. The only thing I got to keep was what I made in the music industry legitimately. Okay. I fought for that and we won. Wow. Yeah. So you really had the rise and fall of it all. Oh, yeah. And when you were sentenced to 30 years, where were you sent to? MCC, New York.

Which is a holding facility. And that's where they kept me for five years. Wow. Yeah. What was their reasoning for doing that? Three of those five years was in lockdown. 23 out of 24 hours a day. Holy cow. Yeah. The toll that that had to have taken on your mental health. Well, you just got to beat it. You know, you don't let them beat you. You know, you got to beat it. And, you know, you do. You read. You try to stay as healthy as you can while you're in there. Yeah.

you know that's all you can do yeah you fight with the guards you know and then when you get tired of fighting with them you just pay them off see now i was wondering if we could talk about that yeah okay so you had all of those correctional officers paid off payroll yeah they were on your payroll not all of them

There was like a couple of them that I didn't even like a little bit. So fuck them guys. But yeah, for the most part. Yeah. That's so how did that work? Why did you pay them? Why were they on your payroll? What did they do for you?

Well, I got to come out of my cell when other people couldn't. Okay. I had use of a telephone that wasn't a pay phone. Okay. When I say pay phone, I mean you didn't have to make a click call. Yeah. There was a phone in the attorney conference room. Okay. That you could just dial out. So they would open that room up for me so I could just go in there and make all the phone calls I wanted. Okay.

Well. That wasn't recorded. Yeah. You know, so, yeah. And then, of course, you know, we had visits, you know, which nobody else had. You know, my visitor would come, there'd be nobody else in the visiting room and the guards would get up and leave. Oh. Yeah. Okay. So you were there for five years. Yeah. And why did they keep you in a holding facility? Why didn't they transfer you? To punish me.

yeah it's a lot tougher they had this case in in uh in new york in the eastern district federal flushings federal flushing savings alone okay it was a bank fraud case that i was involved in not completely involved but involved enough to catch a charge on it and they wanted me to testify at this trial which i didn't want any part of and so that was because in your world

You don't snitch. You don't. Doesn't matter what comes your way. It doesn't matter. Because if you do... Yeah, you're a rat. You'll pay for it later. Yeah. So, which is why... Which is actually what brought me to really write this book, Connected. Because for years and years and years, people didn't know whether I ratted or didn't rat. You know, we didn't have an internet. We didn't have all that stuff where you can look it up. So, when I went to Congress...

And I gave my testimony in Congress. Well, that's a whole other story. It is. But I just want to say this. When I wrote the book, I took word for word right out of the Library of Congress, unedited of my complete testimony, and put it in the book.

So it's right there in black and white. Whenever they asked me for a name, I declined. So I never gave a name to Congress. Never. And so when you, so you're in prison and when did it come about you testifying in front of Congress? So Mike Cahill, who's the FBI agent, um,

While I was in jail, he just felt that he could get to me. Mm-hmm. You know, that he's seen something in me, I guess, that I didn't see in myself. Yeah. Because I pretty much was a badass motherfucker. Yeah. I mean, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I was a bully. I was a bad guy. You know, and I wielded a lot of power, and I took no shit from anyone. Mm-hmm.

So, but he saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. And he brought me all those cassette tapes that he told me about and a tape recorder. And he got the warden to allow me to have this tape recorder while I was in jail. They don't let you have tape recorders in jail. Yeah. So, but I had it and I had all these cassette tapes. He said, just listen to them. You might, you know, you might hear something. Maybe if you want to tell me you hear something that we missed, you know, but listen to them. So I did. And I listened to myself talk on the telephone.

And man, I tell you what, I didn't like the guy I was listening to. That guy was a real piece of shit. If I'd have known that guy in my personal life the way I am right now, me and him would not get along at all. And that takes a lot to... Yeah, he was an asshole, man. You know, Larry Fermato was a real motherfucker. Yeah. He was an asshole. He abused his power and he abused a lot of people. You know, I ran over a lot of guys. I helped a lot of guys.

But I ran over a lot of guys too. And so sitting there listening to yourself, you were kind of forced to face what you ran from for so many years. Yeah. And that caused you to want to testify in front of Congress. Pretty much. Yeah. I knew I wanted to change my life. And I knew this was not the life that I wanted to keep or have. Yeah.

after listening to myself. So I did. So that's what I decided, why I decided to go to Congress. I had small children and I thought maybe I could do just something that might be good that they could have something to say, well, he wasn't all bad. So that's what I did. And so when the government came to you about testifying in front of Congress, what was their goal?

So basically there was a congressional committee and they were looking into the infiltration of organized crime into the penny stock market. They didn't know what to do about it. They didn't know how to change any of the rules. They didn't have anyone that could tell them how to do it. And they just kept asking for names of people that might be qualified enough to give them the information that they needed. So basically my name kept hitting the bell every single time. I was the number one guy.

So they wanted me to explain how the workings of the penny stock market, how it worked and how all these guys made money. And so basically one of the things I told them was if you're a mover and a shaker in the penny stock business, organized crime has a hand on your shoulder.

And that's pretty much what it boils down to. And when they came to you about testifying, though, you said, I will do it, but I need to make sure I'm protected. That's correct. I will not say any names, but I will give you all the information you need. Yep. And you, so you, I guess you were in a van on the way to testify. Yeah.

Yeah. And they, you saw paparazzi, you saw people from news outlets taking pictures and you called them out and said, what I need, I need to be protected. And what did they do? Well, that's not quite what happened. No. So we pull up and yeah, there was all these people there. And I knew that I was, they were not supposed to know who I was. So when we got step, when we first stepped out of the van,

the head marshal, Alfie was his name, threw this hood over my head. And he said, listen, I'm just doing this because we don't want them to take your picture. I'll walk you in. And when we get inside, I'll take the hood off. I said, okay. So here I was now,

with this hood. I mean, in a million years, I'd have never let them do it if I knew they were going to do that. You know, so, but, you know, and this picture of me in this hood has lived on for years and years and years. Yeah, it's there. Oh, it's fucking there already. We'll put it in the video too. Yeah. Because so people can see. Oh yeah, it's there. So I testified to Congress and when I left Congress that day, I thought to myself, these guys are never going to do a fucking thing that I told them to do. And it was just a waste of my time.

And I went back, they took me back to New York, to MCC New York. And that night, one of the guards, I call them cops, one of the cops came to my door and he opened my door and he said, hey, Larry, you got to come and see this. So we went to the kitchen where we had a TV in the kitchen with cable. And there on the TV was a picture of me in the hood and a picture of me without the hood.

And it was just going and scrolling across. Larry Formato gives a blistering indictment against organized crime and infiltration into the penny stock market. And it was just going over and over. And the next day, it was in every newspaper across the country. Picture of me and a picture of me in the hood. And that was...

completely against what your deal with the government was it was completely against my deal it was their job to protect you in exchange for me telling them how to fix the problem yeah and they they distorted your voice during the day they distorted my voice they you know kept the camera when I was behind a shield kind of thing um

where I could see the congressman they could see me but the the cameras were all behind this shield yeah yeah and so your testimony led to the penny stock reform act of 1990. that's correct and what and that was just to kind of help with the organized crime within the stock market well

So people call me a crook and they tell me that I'm a bad guy and that I robbed millions and millions and millions of dollars. And they're probably right about that. But the other side of the coin is the legislation that was passed for the Securities Act of 1990, which was the most important securities act that was passed since 1933.

saved the American public billions and billions of dollars. So in comparison, the millions that I did versus the billions that I saved the American public. There's no comparison. And you got to a point to where you hated the person you were. Oh, yeah. And this was your...

chance to make things right. Yeah, and I did so Congress adopted every single thing I told them to do Which I was totally shocked about so all those new laws everything that that whole law was written Verbally from what I told them to do Wow, so pink sheets no longer existed where you had to look them up I told them to make pink sheets electronic just like they do on all the other stocks. Yeah, and they did it, you know promoters

How to be licensed. They did it. And bonded. They did it. And so after you testified at Congress, you went back to your cell. To my cell. And how much time did you end up serving?

I served a total of five years. People thought that I went to Congress to get out of jail. Yeah. But I was almost done with jail when I went to Congress. I didn't get a get out of jail free card for going to Congress. In fact, the only thing I got from going to Congress was fucked. Pretty much. That was pretty much it. But

once you went to Congress, did the mafia world completely turn against you? Well, they were turned upside down because they didn't know what I said. They didn't know what I said or who I said it about. Mm-hmm.

You know, so they had no clue. I mean, they didn't have the records of the Library of Congress. Yeah. You know, so, you know, it isn't like today. You know, you can't, today you can find out anything. Yeah. Back then, forget it. You know, so they didn't know, the only thing they knew was what the TV was telling them, that Larry Fermato delivered a blistering indictment against organized crime in the penny stock market.

So that's what they knew. That's what they heard. And that's what they believed. And so when you got out of jail, you were placed into witness protection. I was. Because of that reason. Because of that reason. And witness protection. Was a motherfucker. You said that was worse than spending time inside. It was. Yeah, it was. Yeah. So they flew me and my son to Nashville, Tennessee.

That's crazy. That's where we landed was Nashville, Tennessee. And your name was? Larry Paradise. I still laugh at that. That's insane. So you're in witness protection. Yeah. That is crazy. And so now looking at the time that you spent inside. Yeah. Were you prepared to reenter back into society? Well, you also, one thing we didn't touch on was when you were inside the

You really turned to religion. Yeah, I did and you got ordained, correct? I did so you went from being part of the most organized crime world Vicious to now being like giving communion. Yeah, and when the priest couldn't come on Sundays, that's exactly what I did Oh, yeah, and so that was you turning your life around. Yeah, I mean, uh, I

It was time. As I said, I've had miracles in my life. Going to jail saved my life. Honestly, I wouldn't take that part of it back for anything. I'm glad that that happened. It really saved my life. Mike Cahill told me when he arrested me, when I got to jail, he called them bars, but they weren't ever bars. It was just a door.

But he said, when you get there, you should be hugging and kissing those bars tonight because these guys were going to kill you. Wow. Yeah. Wow. You can get too big and you can get too powerful and you can know too much and then you become dangerous. Yeah.

So I guess I was teetering on the dangerous end. And I don't know, maybe they felt they had made enough money and they knew that I wanted out. Yeah. I was doing this record deal and they all couldn't get a piece of it. Yeah. You know, a lot of people were getting cut out of it. So... And so now when you look at your time and you say that it saved your life. Oh, it did. Literally saved your life. I promise you. But...

When to this day, there still has to be struggle because you have a record. Oh, absolutely. And that's what doesn't matter. Every lease application, every purchase, every you are by definition a convicted felon. And people don't realize how that impacts your life because you served your time. Yeah. So the way I get around that, like

If you go to open up a brokerage account, as an example, they do a background search. Of course, they search my name. So basically, they say, we don't want you. So then I write a response back to them. And I said, well, if I was good enough for Congress, then I should be good enough for you. So I'm the guy that changed these laws. So that's how I get...

and get accepted through these certain things. But yeah, you're right. And it's never too late for a second chance. Yeah. That's the thing that I'm like now, obviously, with my parents' situation, I'm looking into all of these laws that do affect convicted felons. And in the state of Tennessee, you can't even be a hairdresser. And that's the sad part is I don't feel like we're doing our job as a society by...

the rest of someone else's life. They serve their time. You serve your time inside. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of that has to do with if you have to give them paper, meaning when you get out, are you on probation? Yeah. You know, and then if you are, is your probation officer a real cocksucker? Yeah.

you know is he a prick or is he are you a nice guy you know and that and that really makes a big difference yeah you know because when these guys are real pricks it kind of forces these these guys to go back into a life of crime see and that's what i have said is when we don't equip the

These men and women to reenter back into society They have no other choice but to do the only thing they knew they were good at And that's the issue is that we're still doing the same things today that we did back when you were in prison Like that should tell us we're doing something wrong well, you know

It's a big problem. Yeah. But it's really, it's not so much up to the prison system or the government. The real person that makes that decision

the person himself. You know, I could make a decision to go back to a life of crime pretty damn easy. I mean, seriously, it would be pretty easy. Or I could just do it the right way. And a lot of times doing it the right way is hard. It is very hard. I had an attorney once, Mark Bateman, and he used to tell me, you know what your problem is, Larry? You're only half a crook.

So you either gotta be a whole crook, you just can't be a half a crook. - Yeah. - And so you either gotta be committed

and go all the way, gotta be all the way in or don't just be halfway in. So same thing when you get out of jail, you've got to be committed to yourself. Not to the government, you don't have to prove anything to your probation officer or anyone else. You're a man or a woman, this is who you are. You are what you're made up of. And if you want to be a good person, you'll find a way to be a good person.

I'm challenged and I promise you, I'm challenged every day of my life.

I have a challenge. Someone somewhere challenges me. They want to know if I'm the tough guy that did all these things. Or, you know, can you get to this guy? Or can we get him to do this deal? Or will he do that deal for us? I'm challenged every single day. And every single day I have to turn away from it. Yeah. You know, so... It is up to you. It's the person. And I do think...

I do think that our government could assist a little better in helping that. They can, but you have to want to help yourself too. I mean, you really do. And it's no different. I know today is like a different world. It's not the world that I grew up in.

But certainly it's the world that you are in now and you'll be here for a long time. I won't be. But, you know, you guys do have it harder in a way. But I blame you guys a lot, too, on the younger generation. 100%. So, I mean, when I got out of jail, I had nothing. Absolutely nothing. Yeah. And when I was coming down the elevator in this Nashville airport, I was met with a U.S. Marshal.

who was going to be my seer or overseer or go-to guy or whatever you want to call him when you're in a witness protection program and i had a pair of casso glasses on sunglasses and i had a big pinky diamond ring on and he said oh yeah you're gonna fit right in here pal he said you do know you're in nashville wow you better get with it and you know get rid of those sunglasses and that pinky ring yeah

And that was pretty much all the help he ever gave us. He dropped us off at a room in downtown Nashville.

And that's where we lived for three months until I bought a house. Wow. What a story. Yeah. And so you do have a new book that you're working on. I do. And how is that going to be different than Connected? It picks up where Connected left off. Okay. And it kind of tells a little bit of a story, which I'll feed out just a little of it. So when we got to Nashville, my son and I,

We had nothing and we both wanted to be in the music business. Yeah. And so I made these little flyers up. Yeah. You know, if you're looking for paradise, you know, here we are. So basically, yeah.

Paradise Management was our company. And I made these flyers and had these 10 little things that if you wanted to be a writer or a singer in the industry, this is what you needed to do. And you needed to hire Paradise Management consultants. And I used to go down to Music Row every morning at Shoney's. There was Shoney's down there on Music Row then.

and you don't remember that was before you were born and I would hand out all these damn little flyers trying to get people to give me 500 bucks to retain me to represent them. I knew more people in the music business than just about anybody. My partners in the music business

before I was arrested was Kuhn Sullenfeld who was the president of Polygram Records chairman of the board of Polygram wow Freddie Hines was the president of Polydor they were my partners in the music industry

they were the biggest people in the industry so i pretty much had the industry pretty much wrapped up so here's this little guy in nashville now larry patterson nobody knows you know and i'm dying because i can't tell anybody who i know you really are yeah or who i know yeah so your book picks up there it's up there with me starting off at music row and

And very quickly I went from not having anything To where we bought a little house In Donaldson Yep My son and I And then we went over to Berry Hill Okay And we bought a house and a studio A music studio Yeah In Berry Hill We owned it And we started a little record company And a production company And a publishing company

And Sonny still has a publishing company to this day. That's amazing. So what's the title of the book? Do you have it yet? I do not.

have it you'll tell us later no i'll tell you it's called dangerous ways wow oh i love that so people can find your original book connected by larry formato on amazon you can google it and then you've got a new book in the works and potentially a documentary yeah we have a documentary coming soon wow well i cannot wait thank you so much for sharing your story and i mean i

You literally went from a mobster to giving communion to like your life completely turned around. Yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. You're the best. One more thing. What? I figured God forgave me, so I don't care about the rest of the people. Fuck them. I love it. Well, I just want to tell you about a quick podcast.

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