If any official asks you to pay for anything, please report them.". Then she'd charge my friends $50 each," he says. But Tarzan a seasoned wheeler-dealer, strip club owner and former mob enforcer took it in his stride and went back to his partners with the response. Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. Prostitution was so common at Porky's that the club had fixed places and prices, Galeota says. Get the latest updates in news, food, music and culture, and receive special offers direct to your inbox. Episode 5: Spain /Sold My Soul Santiago de Cali shone in the syrupy South American sunlight filling Colombia's Cauca River Valley. Inside, the bar is still littered with half-empty bottles of Chivas Regal. Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. The year before, his father helped him land a job as a wedding DJ. Prosecutors accused him of providing prostitutes for his Russian friends, trafficking drugs, selling stolen cigarettes and liquor, and setting up arms deals for Russian and Colombian cocaine smugglers. He was soon promoted from DJing weddings to robbing delivery trucks for the Paccione clan (which federal court records tie to the infamous Gambino crime family). "No one can tell us how long he will be in there," she says. A large Russian man called Tarzan sits in an armchair against the backdrop of a cracked and stained wall, a pack of cigarettes, lighter and an ash tray on a table to his left, and he shrugs as he talks about a deal he tried to broker more than 20 years ago. "That's obstruction of justice.". Sign Up. A dozen plainclothes cops poured in with pistols drawn. I know its gonna be a strange question. He was 31. Catherine says she slept with customers because she needed the money to support her family. Furious and Busted Rick Cedar steals radios to support his family. But his mind was on another kind of riches. "I thought I would kick up my heels together like 'Oh my God, I'm finally out,'" he says. Sign Up. Tarzan and one of his partners, 'Fat Tony' Galeota, had opened a strip club in Panama similar to a previous enterprise in Miami called Porky's - but they landed behind bars in Central America.. the agent said. Miami's underworld may still be seedy, but it has outsourced much of its shadiness to nearby Third-World countries such as Panama. Back in the mid-1990s, if you were a Miami mobster seeking girls, guns, cocaine, the services of an arsonist, or muscle to beat down a deadbeat, Ludwig Tarzan Fainberg was your man. He called me in two days and he asked me, do we want the submarine with missiles or without missiles? says Tarzan. Docs need stars just like features need stars. independent local journalism in Miami. Cops had made several controlled buys of drugs. "Whenever there is an American businessman involved in crime here in Panama, it becomes an important case. "Now I'm living in hell.". ", After bribing half the guards at La Joya, Galeota was taken to an immigration holding center in Panama City where he and four codefendants were kept for four more days. independent local journalism in Miami. Prostitution is legal in Panama," he complains. Controlling it. "It was a nightmare in there. Everybody wanted to make money. The smugglers boat was destroyed because it was a hazard to navigation. When he left to open a bona fide brothel in Panama, Galeota thought the country's lax prostitution laws would make him rich. . Galeota has seen several murders. "My wife is never going to completely trust me. On a Sunday night in July of 1991, a 29-year-old electrician named Phillip John Shea came into Quarterbacks shortly after Tony and Kristy left. And I'm not asking her to.". Instead, they eat rice for lunch and dinner, drink dirty river water, and use a hole in the ground for a toilet. "When you're in La Joya for two years, you get used to that environment," Galeota says. Eventually, he moved two dozen ladies to Panama City. "They would describe what they looked like," Galeota says. Miami playboy, Russian gangster and Cuban spy tried to buy submarine Prostitutes were everywhere at the weddings, and when Tony asked another employee where they came from, the older kid took him to Manhattan's infamous West End. In hand-painted white lettering, it reads, "Dear visitors. You could not mislead him in any way or you could tell that the consequences could be serious, but I loved him. "That's the problem.". document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. Between an undercover agent, a tap on Tarzans cellphone and the wiring of Babushka, federal law enforcement agencies had enough information to shut down the sale. But instead of classical music, his specialty is sex. But when the house of cards tumbles, John . They had girls in every city. The irony is not lost on Galeota that after a life of crime in Miami, he was arrested in Panama just as he was going legit. I told Juan, I said, Hey. The dead and dying are piled into wheelbarrows and left by the front gate until guards arrive in the morning. Photo Gallery. I had kind of, little by little, put the word out to everybody among the cops, all the law enforcement side as well as among the crooks and said, Gotta meet Tony, gotta meet Tony, gotta meet Tony knowing that he was the only guy who really knew what happened. Apparently knowing all too well how things would shake out, Yester decided to screw his partners and take off for Amsterdam with the first $10 million. Once they spotted the plane, they changed course which is suspicious for us, said Boatswains Mate 1st Class, Joshua McElhaney with the Coast Guard. Moreover, trafficking prostitutes and drugs and involvement in organized crime are some serious charges.". Galeota already lived according to a gangster's code. "He had that guido effect on me," she says. But he was too shell-shocked to take up his attorney's offer for a ride to a nice hotel. 4:00AM. Miami's underworld may still be seedy, but it has outsourced much of its shadiness to nearby Third-World countries such as Panama. The 43-year-old is shaped like a mini refrigerator: short and squat, with a shaved head and wide-set emerald eyes. And when his mother was distraught over a broken washing machine, he filled the house with new appliances. A man deeply embedded with Escobar's Medelln cartel, Tony had a notorious reputation as "a really bad guy"he was once caught with 41 passports, and featured on his own 1999 episode of America's. The entire situation sounds like something dreamed up for a Miami Vice-inspired action thriller, but it actually happened in the 1990s and the trio came very close to pulling it off before one of them pocketed the cartels millions and went on the run. Log In or Sign Up Tony Galeota See Photos Anthony Galeota See Photos Tony Kalata See Photos Tony Galeote See Photos Tony Galea See Photos Tony Galeto See Photos Tony Gullette See Photos Tony Gulotta See Photos His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a criminal," Tony remembers. The American says he's giving up the strip club and brothel businesses. Biography. People named Tony Galeta. Find your friends on Facebook. "Many times, I worried about him getting killed. While Kristy was still in the States, he lived with five of his Colombian prostitutes. "I used to have to patch Tony up all the time," Kristy says. "They shot him in the middle of the night," Galeota continues quietly, "and buried his body behind the pavilion.". Become a member to support the independent voice of South Florida But she insists that her husband's imprisonment has brought them closer. He knew that the owners of a local strip club called Moulin Rouge David Fridman and Jake Lita (an Israeli wanted by German police on human-trafficking charges) had a business offer for the duo. "Whenever there is an American businessman involved in crime here in Panama, it becomes an important case. Galeota examines a bruise from a prison fight in La Joya. Business was better, but it still wouldn't make him rich. The Porky's party nearly came to a sudden end in early 1997. The year before, his father helped him land a job as a wedding DJ. Facilitating it. "You see who wants to fuck your wife, who wants to rob you, and who your real friends are.". Everything here has a cost.". When one inmate killed another, the dead man's gang on the outside murdered the inmate's entire family, Galeota says. In the distance, La Cordillera de San Blas cuts through the Panamanian jungle like a serrated knife. Its impossible but only because its true. Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. "It is with tremendous heartfelt sadness to announce the passing of Michael James Galeota," Jan. 10, reads a statement on a Go Fund Me page, created by Galeota's family to raise money for his burial. We have a lot of laughs about it now," he says. Galeota's imprisonment abroad marks the end of one of Miami's most outrageous eras, when Russian and Colombian cartels stocked strip clubs with cheap prostitutes and cheaper cocaine. "We just meshed," she says. We asked them some questions and some of their information didnt quite add up, so we conducted a boarding.. But then the country's corrupt system turned on them. But the hassle had taken its toll on him. Back in South Florida, Kristy Galeota vacillates between outrage and empathy for her husband. New Times wrote about Galeota's plight last year ("From Porky's to Hell," October 4, 2012), even visiting him in La Joya prison, a crumbling concrete complex in the jungle where inmates kill each other with impunity. One can imagine they did plenty of drugs.. We've been here for two years!' It was a weeknight, and Porky's was washed in pale-pink neon light. Galeota tried going straight, opening a coffee shop in downtown Panama City. Facebook Email or phone Password Forgot account? When he was 16, he knocked up his 15-year-old girlfriend at Hauppauge High School. He bought seven properties pretty much sight unseen.". "He was a smooth-talker. But Galeota's problems aren't completely behind him. If only there were a place where prostitution was legal, he thought, a city full of beautiful women like Miami, but no rules. Sheila Flynn For Dailymail.com "I lived it up in Miami," he says. "It was a very violent atmosphere," he says. He and Kristy struck up an unlikely romance. It had been ten years since U.S. "My father wasn't in the mob, but his friends were," Tony says. But Galeota was convinced the cops were bluffing and refused to cooperate. Tony Kaleta. Disney Star Michael Galeota Death: Brother Jimmy Opens Up About Family As for his career, his only oath is that he won't let his sons follow his example. Watch Locked Up Abroad TV Show - Streaming Online | Nat Geo TV Moreover, trafficking prostitutes and drugs and involvement in organized crime are some serious charges.". It could be worse. The crew boarded the 165-foot Panamanian-flagged coastal freighter Hope II. Tarzan, got his first job in America as an enforcer for the Gambino crime family. But killings are common in Panama's worst prison, where the smell of raw sewage wafts over the yard, metal shackles hang from mouldy staircases, and overcrowded cells house nearly 3,500 of the Western Hemisphere's vilest murderers, rapists, and drug traffickers. "We went there and we couldn't believe what we saw," says Josh Weiss, a former DJ at Porky's and one of Galeota's closest friends. Instead, he's trapped in a labyrinthine legal system, alone and unable to speak Spanish. But Tony had darker secrets. She's forgiven me, for the most part. "Their connections were bigger than ours," he says. "I want to go legit when I get out, but if the economy is bad, I might go back to the industry," he says. The Dolls House, Via Espaia Road, Panama City, Panam, "They murdered a guy in here a couple of days ago" Tony Galeota, Tony Galeota: From Running Porky's, Miami's Most Notorious Strip Joint, to Rotting in a Panamanian Jail. Indeed, Tony would turn Porky's into a moneymaking machine. But instead of classical music, his specialty is sex. October 4, 2012 A judge eventually dropped the human trafficking charge, but Galeota still rotted in his sordid cell alongside insects the size of small dogs. As the authorities closed in, they picked up Juan and Tarzan, but they couldnt find Tony and neither could the cartel. His father, Arnold, was a strait-laced sales manager but a distant and disapproving dad. Sheila Flynn For Dailymail.com, Smashing the Sinaloa cartel: Major coup for DEA as agents seize $6MILLION cash, hundreds of pounds of narcotics and indict 75 across America for 'laundering drug money for El Chapo's gang', Is this proof that British aristocrat did NOT smuggle drugs into Africa? He also owned the Russian restaurant Babushka, which was a magnet for snowbirding criminals from his homeland. Bonnie also shoplifted booze to sustain her hard drinking habit. See Photos. Unfortunately, Galeota's defense isn't as simple as quoting strippers, says his lawyer, Guillermina McDonald. And she launched drunken tirades at Tony after baseball games, no matter how well the all-star shortstop performed. I was literally on a press tour for the last film, and I was in New York doing interviews and stuff I called the producers and said, Do you think we can get a million dollars in the next five days?. Anywhere other than La Joya, this news would be shocking. The offload is a result of two successful drug interdictions in the Caribbean since August 23. Galeota's sheer size and mob connections are the only things keeping him from getting shivved in the dark. Born on June 3, 1924 at Hartford. ", McDonald has succeeded, however, in chipping away at the case, persuading a judge three weeks ago to drop the trafficking charge on a technicality. Photo courtesy of Josh Weiss A prisoner poses with a gun smuggled into La Joya with help from guards. Michael Galeota Obituary (1984 - 2016) - Pontotoc, MS - Pontotoc Progress Also read: Tony Galeota: From Running. Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. "They had what seemed like a dynamite case, but it has ended up in pieces.". We did outsmart the FBI, we did outsmart the DEA, we even did outsmart the court, Tarzan says in the film. And like the Italian-American crooner, he loved women a little too much. Michael Galeota Obituary (1984 - 2016) Chicago Sun-Times The heavy-set Italian even signed a release. And, above all, selling it. source of local news and culture, Michael E. Miller (A New York Police Department spokesman says records from that far back aren't available.) This time, I'm innocent.". A kilo of cocaine in Panama costs much less - about $5,000 per. and help keep the future of New Times, Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our. Director Tiller Russell tells DailyMail.com that hed heard rumblings and rumors about the insane deal, but it was about seven years ago when he first got a concrete lead about Tarzan and his cronies. "She would use shoe polish to change our driver's licenses so we could go to clubs and drink when we were 15. He called his cartel contacts and arranged to meet them in the pickup area of the Madrid train station. He ogled the women standing on corners in their underwear and high heels. Tarzan and one of his partners, Fat Tony Galeota, had opened a strip club in Panama similar to a previous enterprise in Miami called Porkys but they landed behind bars in Central America. According to the Coast Guard: It first took place north of the Gulf of Uraba. Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. "Now I'm living in hell.". This is a guy that the FBI went after for years but could never get him. At night, the guards lock the gate and leave, turning over control of each cell block to prisoners. One scammer stole from another scammer; of course I accept it, he says. The last one locked the door. The guards leave at 5pm, and they just lock the gates, and its inmate rule at night, he says, explaining that he bribed a guard to get him in and out of the jail. Again, the charges were dropped. Strippers, Cocaine and Murder: The Crazy (True) Story of Two Crooks And he hopes to open a place in Fort Lauderdale when he's back, Just not a strip club. "We were doing fantastic, but Tarzan got bored and started living the life," Galeota explains. Were out there to cause an effect in the drug industry and I believe we made a little dent on it.. Then once he sent me this crazy email like, Holy s***! one of the kids shouted as he pulled a handkerchief over his face and wildly swung a revolver. "Anthony has been in jail for more than 15 months, and a judge hasn't even heard his case yet!" "That's the goal," is all he'll offer. CAKEGATE 2023: Bad Bunny's Restaurant Accused of Gobbling Birthday Girl's Cake, Neighborhood Nazi Jon Minadeo Peddles Hate by the Minute, Gator Gets in on the Action at Tampa Bay Horse Race, Sen. Rubio's Permanent Daylight Savings Bill Sees Light of Day Once More, NFL Legend Ray Lewis Joins World Jai-Alai League Board of Directors, Affordable New "Micro-Units" Slated for Little River, Edgewater. "It's not an easy choice," she says. 16:56 GMT 13 Mar 2018 ", "You hear that?" Tony Galeota: From Running Porky's, Miami's Most Notorious Strip Joint For 18 years, Galeota ran Porky's with the same punishing justice he learned from the mob and transformed it into Miami's most notorious whorehouse, where Russian gangsters and Cuban criminals spent millions on sex and drugs. He offered protection and gave Galeota $200. "It was puppy love," he says. Banged Up Abroad - Wikipedia Sixteen months later, the two men have yet to appear in court. Yester, a highly regarded affiliate of multiple cocaine cartels, opened European markets for Colombian narco-terrorist Pablo Escobar and went on the run in 1990 after being charged with cocaine trafficking. "When you're in La Joya for two years, you get used to that environment," Galeota says. "Everybody give me your money!" "My wife could have left me. and help keep the future of New Times, Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our, running Miami's most infamous strip club, Porky's, Tony Galeota: From Running Porky's, Miami's Most Notorious Strip Joint, to Rotting in a Panamanian Jail, Sex and Drugs in the Champagne Room: The Truth About Porky's and Other Miami Strip Clubs. The 43-year-old is shaped like a mini refrigerator: short and squat, with a shaved head and wide-set emerald eyes. The person they were going to pay for the submarine was the officer who let them [into the naval base], says Russell. "If you like to eat chocolate and you live in a chocolate factory, you're going to eat chocolate," he says. But he was too shell-shocked to take up his attorney's offer for a ride to a nice hotel. "That clean, business-friendly, postcard-Panama bullshit is just a faade," Galeota says. Operation Odessa - From the Heart Productions Inc But killings are common in Panama's worst prison, where the smell of raw sewage wafts over the yard, metal shackles hang from moldy staircases, and overcrowded cells house nearly 3,500 of the Western Hemisphere's vilest murderers, rapists, and drug traffickers. As the couple drove south on I-95, they thought they were leaving the worst behind them. His Doll House dream began at Porky's. With dark hair and pale, wide-set eyes, teenage Tony resembled a stocky Frank Sinatra. Michael Galeota's Obituary (1984 - 2016) Estes Park Trail-Gazette Fainberg allegedly told undercover cops he had sent coke to Russia in a shipment of frozen shrimp and had bought six $1 million Russian military helicopters for the South Americans. If I were to make this story up and pitch it as a writer, producers would be like, Thats the worst pitch Ive ever heard. MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) The Coast Guard offloaded about $93 million of cocaine Thursday afternoon on Miami Beach. A tattoo of an Italian Mafioso emerges from an extra-large sleeveless T-shirt. Can he prove his innocence and escape? Russian mobsters learned about their comrade's successful venture, and adopted the club as a virtual office. And last year, Yester was finally arrested in Rome on charges unrelated to the submarine while en route to a wedding. Most of them were robberies gone wrong or simple revenge. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a criminal," Tony remembers. SO I started with the cops and I had been kind of circling the others without knowing if it was really possible or not. Tony and Kristy were shocked and out of a job. "The worst part of being in here is being in here for nothing. The gig introduced him to a lifelong vice. And like the Italian-American crooner, he loved women a little too much. In the meantime, he's spending time with his wife and kids. He left, but returned with a gun. As Fainberg and a wealthy Cuban-American named Juan Almeida sat in the Federal Detention Center downtown, and newspapers across the country splashed the sensational story of the drug submarine scheme, Galeota focused on staying out of court. But he insists that, for once, he has done nothing wrong. Tony is my friend, and well always love each other. "I lived it up in Miami," he says. Facilitating it. And like the Italian-American crooner, he loved women a little too much. He'd already invested in seven apartments in Panama City and rented a storefront on the capital's seediest street, where prostitution was legal. Making the documentary, he says: I found the story so compelling and so riveting that I was just relentlessly magnetized to it. Tony Galeota in the 1940 Census | Ancestry More than anything, Galeota is grateful that his family kept faith in him. It was coke or pimping or messing with the wrong people..