tony galeota family

He left, but returned with a gun. He was 31. "It was a real moneymaker. Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. With dark hair and pale, wide-set eyes, teenage Tony resembled a stocky Frank Sinatra. We did outsmart the FBI, we did outsmart the DEA, we even did outsmart the court, Tarzan says in the film. One scammer stole from another scammer; of course I accept it, he says. By the mid-'90s, Galeota had turned Porky's into a one-stop shop for strippers, sex, and serious drugs. And last year, Yester was finally arrested in Rome on charges unrelated to the submarine while en route to a wedding. By the time they returned to Long Island later that night, a pimp was born. MICHAEL GALEOTA OBITUARY. "It's not an easy choice," she says. We have a lot of laughs about it now," he says. Girls charged $150 or more for sex. Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. There was nothing unusual about it. The heavy-set Italian even signed a release. Tony Goleta. It wasn't until he ordered some Italian food and a cold Guinness that he finally felt like he was free. Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. They'd use their connections with immigration officials to obtain visas and prostitution licenses and then give Tarzan and Tony 40 percent of the profits to run a new club, called the Doll House. "I couldn't take all the people who wanted to come.". Prosecutors charged Galeota and Fainberg with not only drug dealing but also human trafficking. GALEOTA, Joseph A., Sr. Joseph A. Galeota Sr., 86, of Ashford CT, died on Wednesday (January 26, 2011) at Windham Hospital from congestive heart failure. Again, the charges were dropped. But she insists that her husband's imprisonment has brought them closer. "No one can tell us how long he will be in there," she says. "It was puppy love," he says. Sixteen months later, the two men have yet to appear in court. Inside La Joya, he had paid a guard to smuggle in a BlackBerry to talk to his wife, but strangers kept calling with threats to kill his kids unless he paid them. Instead, they eat rice for lunch and dinner, drink dirty river water, and use a hole in the ground for a toilet. But the deal never happened. As for his career, his only oath is that he won't let his sons follow his example. "A family type thing, like an ale house with wings and beer," he says. Now the stranger-than-fiction story is brought to life in new documentary Operation Odessa, a film thats closer to a roller-coaster ride than anything else and premieres on Showtime March 31. And like the Italian-American crooner, he loved women a little too much. 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 was coke or pimping or messing with the wrong people.. "My family didn't care; they took it," Galeota says of the stolen goods. And I'm not asking her to. He was 31. Ten million dollars really feels like 10 million dollars, he gushes in the movie. Its about 2,800 kilos, about a ton and a half of contraband. "They shot him in the middle of the night," Galeota continues quietly, "and buried his body behind the pavilion.". Prosecutors say police never filed the necessary paperwork. "We were like: 'We want to get the fuck out of here. Police repeatedly raided the club, yet Galeota escaped unscathed every time. The club was very successful. "My father wasn't in the mob, but his friends were," Tony says. And she launched drunken tirades at Tony after baseball games, no matter how well the all-star shortstop performed. Make a one-time donation today for as little as $1. I told Juan, I said, Hey. For two decades, Galeota managed Porky's, a Hialeah dive notorious for drugs, prostitution, and violence, where he was part pimp, part bouncer, and completely untouchable. Galeota is not exactly repentant. When Seidle died in 2008, Porky's political protection followed the 82-year-old to the grave. On June 19, 2011, Tony and his oldest son, 15-year-old Anthony Jr., had just sat down to eat wings in the Doll House office around 11 p.m. when the gold-painted doors burst open. When crews were launched to investigate, the suspected smugglers threw several packages into the water. "I don't care how strong you are; that's going to affect your marriage," she says. Like a concert pianist, Tony Galeota has spent his life honing a single skill since he was a teenager. Miami's independent source of Through the air plane window, Tony Galeota could see the city's colonial churches glow like polished gold. The submarine request, which came from Yester on behalf of the cartel, was not as outrageous as it now sounds. 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. And twice they had given up. "I'm used to getting my water from a rain bucket, not hot from the tap." Photo courtesy of Josh Weiss A prisoner poses with a gun smuggled into La Joya with help from guards. Has a stint in Panamanian prison reformed Miami's most notorious strip club manager? McDonald expects those will be dismissed as well, but not for months. Almeida, back in Moscow, trying to work out yet another deal and not realizing that this one had already soured, managed to temporarily elude arrest. I definitely want his number and so I began chasing it from there and actually jumped on a plane, went down and smuggled myself into this Panamanian prison to meet with him.. Eventually, he moved two dozen ladies to Panama City. And so with like five days prep I jumped on a plane, went to Miami, started courting the cops and the feds and the US attorneys and all the good guys, the law enforcement side of it their participation was instrumental in it, because theyre the ones that have all the evidentiary record and all the surveillance video and the photos and the wiretaps and all that stuff, most of which is the sort of visual skeleton to the film. According to the Coast Guard: It first took place north of the Gulf of Uraba. independent local journalism in Miami. Moreover, trafficking prostitutes and drugs and involvement in organized crime are some serious charges.". In January 2017, Almeida got federally charged by the Drug Enforcement Administration with conspiracy to possess narcotics with intent to distribute. ", 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. local news and culture, Michael E. Miller And he hopes to open a place in Fort Lauderdale when he's back. Sheila Flynn For Dailymail.com Catherine says she slept with customers because she needed the money to support her family. "They murdered a guy in here a couple of days ago," Tony Galeota says. "My wife can say she has regrets, but that's bullshit," he says. See Photos. "I lived it up in Miami," he says. 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). Join Facebook to connect with Anthony Galeota and others you may know. Update information for Tony Galeota . Tony Galeota: From Running Porky's, Miami's Most Notorious Strip Joint, to Rotting More than 500 inmates crowd into a cell block designed for 200. and help keep the future of New Times, Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our. "There were beautiful girls, just walking the streets, giving blowjobs for $10 or $15.". He'd already invested in seven apartments in Panama City and rented a storefront on the capital's seediest street, where prostitution was legal. A year later, it was $115,000 per month.". He turned himself in a few days later, but the lounge's owner decided to close the cursed club. Documentary Drama When Miami mobster Tony Galeota opens a club in Panama City, the competition frames him for drug dealing and human trafficking. He was very serious and said he would look into it. After that, Kristy closed Bongos. 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. "She would use shoe polish to change our driver's licenses so we could go to clubs and drink when we were 15. "They shot him in the middle of the night," Galeota continues quietly, "and buried his body behind the pavilion.". They arrested 18 suspects, including Galeota, several strippers, and most employees. New laws effectively outlaw brothels such as the Doll House, permit or not but if Galeota walks with no convictions, it will surely embarrass officials trying to make it look like they're cleaning up the industry. MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) The Coast Guard offloaded about $93 million of cocaine Thursday afternoon on Miami Beach. "It was a nightmare in there. Tony is my friend, and well always love each other. His nightmare began in June of 2011, when police raided his Panama City strip club and arrested him and his Ukrainian partner for trafficking women and selling drugs. Years later, Tarzan again found himself behind bars, this time in Panama; in fact, he was serving time in 2011 when Russell first approached him for the documentary. Also read: Tony Galeota: From Running. Nearly 300 feet long with 10 torpedo tubes (empty in this case), it was diesel but could be converted to electric for silent running. Tony Gogetta. Meet me in Africa for a cup of coffee tomorrow.. Anthony Jr. was taken to a juvenile detention center that wasn't much better. Galeota tried going straight, opening a coffee shop in downtown Panama City. "This country is corrupt. And, above all, selling it. "That's the goal," is all he'll offer. Tony Galeota. This time, I'm innocent.". Even then, however, he couldn't sleep. Behind him, 12-foot-high fences topped with spools of barbed wire frame a muddy soccer field. Nobody was impressed more than Kristy Sharpe, an 18-year-old waitress from Orlando with blond hair, blue eyes, and lightly freckled skin. It was a weeknight, and Porky's was washed in pale-pink neon light. The person they were going to pay for the submarine was the officer who let them [into the naval base], says Russell. The 43-year-old is shaped like a mini refrigerator: short and squat, with a shaved head and wide-set emerald eyes. He was a loan shark: generously offering money but punishing those who didn't pay back. With little oversight, military leaders acted as if they were independent of the government. A deep bass line rattled customers' chests as they downed overpriced drinks. They had girls in every city. As Yester laid low with the cash, cartel liaisons in the United States, aware that they had been burned, pressured Almeida to show them where Yesters relatives lived in and around Miami. The message was that the cocaine traffickers would kill Yesters family members. Its a great success overall. We've received your submission. S10 E10 Miami Mobster Take Down. If he didnt give them the information, he was afraid that he would have gotten killed, and he was probably right., In the meantime, Yester may have been too in love with his eight-figure haul to really care and there was ultimately no retribution against his family. More at IMDbPro Contact Info: View agent, publicist, legal on IMDbPro. See Photos. We were approximately 24-hours on board before we got to a hidden compartment, said Castro.There was a hidden compartment and once we opened it we found all the contraband.. Moreover, trafficking prostitutes and drugs and involvement in organized crime are some serious charges.". Create a free family tree for yourself or for Tony Galeota and we'll search for valuable new information for you. But Tony had darker secrets. His attorney has warned him that prosecutors will likely appeal, so he plans to stay in Panama until his case is resolved. But his mind was on another kind of riches. A sign on the latter reads, "District Attorney for Drugs: Do Not Enter." His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a criminal," Tony remembers. But not until she discovered he'd been dating a former Porky's stripper for more than two years did she threaten to divorce him in 2009. "This case has had a big impact here," says Jos Otero, a reporter for Panamanian newspaper La Prensa. Sign Up. Because of his age, he escaped with six months' probation. And theyre like, F*** yeah, lets do it. Indeed, court records show that Seidle was a target of the federal wiretapping investigation. Banks seized all seven of his apartments. 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. and help keep the future of New Times, Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our, From Porky's to Panamanian Prison: Web Extra. "I used to have to patch Tony up all the time," Kristy says. A tattoo of an Italian Mafioso emerges from an extra-large sleeveless T-shirt. Panama's judicial system is outdated and overburdened, she says. Bonnie also shoplifted booze to sustain her hard drinking habit. But Monday morning, when it came time to walk out of La Joya, there was no vehicle waiting. They were all together when Tony worked for the Russin mobsters in Porky's club as its manager. If anything, Galeota's life got even more out of control after Fainberg's arrest. He told them he could get them the submarine for $35million, but said hes need the money in installments; when they gave him the first $10million, he kept the money for himself and disappeared. Galeota may not be a good man, but he is brutally honest. I never got a straight answer [about why he was in jail there], says Russell. There is no rehabilitation here," he says. His nightmare began in June , when police raided his Panama City strip club and arrested him and his Ukrainian partner for trafficking women and selling drugs. Galeota was crammed into a sweltering holding cell with 150 others. So looking back on it and all the hijinks, from being smuggled in to a Panamanian prison to crossing paths with the FSB in Moscow to being met in a Porsche Cayenne by Tony Yester and driving away thinking: Okay, the CIA, DEA, FBI and US Marshals have been looking for this guy for 25 years, and Im in his car by myself with no notion of where were going or when were coming back. In retrospect, its like, Im a moron, but at the time I was full-throttle chase the story., Of the finished product Operation Odessa, he says: Hopefully, its a rocknroll thrill ride into the underworld, where you get a passport to a life and lifestyle and characters that you didnt even imagine existed much less having a ringside seat with them., The comments below have not been moderated, By Become a member to support the independent voice of South Florida "A family type thing, like an ale house with wings and beer," he says. "That clean, business-friendly, postcard-Panama bullshit is just a faade," Galeota says. Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. His father, Arnold, was a strait-laced sales manager but a distant and disapproving dad. The bartender hid in the bathroom and dialed 911. "It was so slow I couldn't take it," he says. He was the one whod been speaking directly to the cartel; he was the only one who knew the real amount of money Cali were willing to pay; and he was the one who took the risk and disappeared with millions of the cartels drug money. The gig introduced him to a lifelong vice. People named Tony Goleta. Log In or Sign Up Tonia Galeota See Photos Antonio Galeota See Photos Tony Galeota See Photos Toni Galea See Photos Toni Colletto See Photos Toni Torres Galea "He was a smooth-talker. In the second interdiction, a Customs plane spotted another suspicious boat off the coast of Panama on August 28th. October 4, 2012 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. Galeota is one of several Americans locked up here. She is a high-powered attorney who has defended two former presidents in corruption cases, but even she hasn't been able to get Galeota out of jail yet. The young mobster needed to lay low, so the Pacciones sent him south to a strip club called the Porthole Pub in Pompano Beach. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a criminal," Tony remembers. 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?. Although he knows he could receive the death penalty, the money is too tempting to resist. 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. People named Tony Galeta. 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. In retrospect, when you tell the stories aloud, its like, Thats insane and you, Tiller, are an insane person for having done that. Its funny; I was just like, this is too good of a story to let go. He soon finds himself wanting to be a mobster, and starts running errands for them. Thats why you have to do this kind of story as non-fiction., The initial meeting with Tarzan, however, was hampered by the fact that the Russian mob got wind of Russells visit, he says, and they threatened Tarzans life inside the jail if he shared his full story. He paid for her to secretly get an abortion. Three weeks after the Doll House raid, Kristy was working the bar at Bongos when three teenagers walked into the restaurant. Greed got the better of him. The gig introduced him to a lifelong vice. Follow this journalist on Twitter @MikeMillerMiami. Tarzan and Tony went so far as to gain access to a Soviet naval base and be taken on a tour of a submarine potentially for sale, even cajoling Russian military officials to pose for photos - which they used to prove to the Colombians that a deal could be brokered (and which are shown in the film). local news and culture, Michael E. Miller So the translator said she couldn't take a shower, didn't show up, and the case was delayed. A tattoo of an Italian Mafioso emerges from an extra-large sleeveless T-shirt. , updated Everybody wanted to make money. SO I started with the cops and I had been kind of circling the others without knowing if it was really possible or not. Like a concert pianist, Tony Galeota has spent his life honing a single skill since he was a teenager. 16:56 GMT 13 Mar 2018 But when he opens a new club in Panama City, the competition isn't happy and frames him for drug dealing. I just called a friend who had a friend and asked if he could get us a sub. Miami's independent source of "Running a club in that neighborhood, win or lose, you've got to fight.". Theyre nice guys [the cartel members], and I didnt ask what they needed the submarine for, Tarzan tells The Post, speaking on a crackling phone connection from Russia. "Then they'd tell me: 'They are as good as dead.'". Prisoners eat stale bread and a slice of cheese for breakfast; rice and sometimes beans is their lunch and dinner. Police again surrounded Porky's in the early hours of May 9, 2009. More than anything, Galeota is grateful that his family kept faith in him. 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. He ogled the women standing on corners in their underwear and high heels. Log In. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a criminal," Tony remembers. Coast Guard members who seized the cocaine said this is what their jobs are all about. Access is free so discover Tony Galeota's story today. Miami's underworld may still be seedy, but it has outsourced much of its shadiness to nearby Third-World countries such as Panama. Join the New Times community and help support independent His attorney has warned him that prosecutors will likely appeal, so he plans to stay in Panama until his case is resolved. Between the restaurant and the Doll House, he was making enough to retire in five years. He and Kristy struck up an unlikely romance. So I was literally stepping over dead bodies of the people who had been shanked and stuff over the course of the night.. "It was a nightmare in there.". "There was no transportation, no cops, no nothing," he says. It was a lot of kind of romancing them and explaining to them, hey, this is your chance to tell your story on kind of a broad canvas. Garrulous and bearish, the dentist-turned-hood (practicing the former in the Soviet Union and training for the latter in Brighton Beach) routinely carried two pistols and operated out of his Hialeah, Fla., strip club, Porkys: famous for a small motorized car that pulled up between the spread legs of dancers as they performed. The nightmare deepened for Galeota. State and local police launched an investigation in February 2009. All he needed now were the prostitutes. Locked Up Abroad 151M subscribers Miami mobster Tony Galeota is a strip-club supremo. See Photos. Prostitution is legal in Panama," he complains. "But I've always paid for everything, either with stitches in my head, concussions, or jail time. As the authorities closed in, they picked up Juan and Tarzan, but they couldnt find Tony and neither could the cartel. But this was Hialeah.". But Galeota's plan would soon go catastrophically wrong. In court statements and interviews with New Times, they said Galeota gave them contracts to sign, cell phones and computers to use, and apartments in which to live. "It was a very violent atmosphere," he says. Johns paid $100 to rent a VIP room downstairs. "My wife could have left me. But it was abundantly clear that the key figure in the deal was Yester and his story would be particularly illuminating though the CIA, DEA and FBI had been after him, without success, for more than two decades. "I lived it up in Miami," he says. "When you're in La Joya for two years, you get used to that environment," Galeota says. The dead and dying are piled into wheelbarrows and left by the front gate until guards arrive in the morning. Skip Ancestry main menu Main Menu He raises his eyebrows and looks upwards to the left to emphasize just how flabbergasted he was with Mishas counter question. Were out there to cause an effect in the drug industry and I believe we made a little dent on it.. Finally, on May 23, the gate on Galeota's cramped cell swung open, and he was free to go. "My wife is never going to completely trust me. Get started U.S. Yearbooks Name Index, 1890-1979. I got a piece of the action of every blowjob that my friends got," Galeota says. Marshals deported Ludwig Fainberg from Miami. On Friday, May 17, Galeota got word that the judge had also dismissed the drug charge because of lack of evidence. 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? You could not mislead him in any way or you could tell that the consequences could be serious, but I loved him. It was a caper, for sure., He says: Tarzan was the lynchpin to it, because it was his story. 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 hired 'Fat Tony' Galeota as Porky's manager. When he was 16, he knocked up his 15-year-old girlfriend at Hauppauge High School. This time, the feds took over the strip club before selling it to new owners, with one requirement: Neither Galeota nor anyone else from the old club could ever work there again. We travelled all the time. They were very compliant to everything we asked of them, said McElhaney. And like the Italian-American crooner, he loved women a little too much. At night, the guards lock the gate and leave, turning over control of each cell block to prisoners. Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. "Whenever there is an American businessman involved in crime here in Panama, it becomes an important case. He faced nine years in prison, but because he provided evidence against Almeida, he served just three years before being deported to his adopted homeland of Israel. As chronicled in the new Showtime documentary Operation Odessa, the trio of cutthroat outlaws collaborated in 1996 to procure the ultimate weapon for Colombias money-minting Cali cocaine cartel: a military submarine.

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