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In an interview over this past weekend, a former mob boss details how he tried to work deals with former US President Donald Trump during the ’80s when Trump worked in the Atlantic City casino industry.
That one time mob boss is out with a new book, ’The Life We Chose: William ‘Big Billy’ D’Elia and the Last Secrets of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Family’. It tells the story of Pennsylvania’s little-known mob power.
The book apparently contains new information about Jimmy Hoffa, the Godfather Movie, and Trump dealing with mobsters.
"Arrogant and he don’t keep his word," is now D’Elia described the former President in an interview with Fox News.
Trump is currently the front runner for the GOP nomination for 2024 and favorite to win among the gambling websites.
The then-casino owner Trump allegedly reneged on a promise with D’Elia’s associates to pay $7 million for a parking lot near his Trump Plaza Casino.
"If he promises you seven (million dollars) and he gives you six, is that a man of his word?", D’Elia asks the reporter when pushed again to explain why Trump was not a man of his word.
The book's author, Matt Birkbeck, elaborated further on how Trump would negotiate.
“Now Trump, when he did deals, he didn’t want his lawyers doing it. He didn’t want anyone else doing it. He did it himself. And he did them with gangsters.”
The book also highlights just how involved the real life Mafia was in the making of The Godfather film.
From the New York Post:
“The Godfather” is regarded as a Hollywood classic, one of the highest grossing films of all time. But the making of this mafia movie got off to a rocky start, as author MATT BIRKBECK describes in “The Life We Chose: William ‘Big Billy’ D’Elia and The Last Secrets of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Family” (William Morrow). It required plenty of negotiations and hard bargains — with some real-life characters who knew quite a lot about the mob. William “Big Billy” D’Elia, head of the once powerful Bufalino crime family and protege of mob boss Russell Bufalino, saw the action behind the scenes.
The newly formed Italian American Civil Rights League league was unhappy with “The Godfather" filming in Brooklyn, claiming that the book the film would be based on portrayed Italian Americans in a negative light.
So as pre-production began on the film, set in Manhattan’s Little Italy neighborhood, the league set its sights on the movie.
It had strong-armed merchants there into buying and displaying league decals on their storefront windows, and the Teamsters ordered its truckers and film crew members to walk away, while league members were threatening the film’s executives with phone calls telling them to “get the f–k outta town, or else.”
This would ultimately result in those involved with the film negotiating terms with the Mafia. the agreement calmed the league and paved the way for the production to resume. The powerful Teamsters got back to work and street guys were told to stop raiding the set.
- Nagesh Rath, Gambling911.com
