The interview delves into the life and criminal activities of Louis Milito, a mobster born in Brooklyn in 1942. The host, Gary Jenkins a retired Kansas City Police detective, discusses Molito’s upbringing in a neighborhood teeming with Sicilian immigrants and his involvement with the Rampers street gang alongside Sammy the Bull Gravano. Despite his criminal endeavors, Milito also pursued a career as a hairdresser, showcasing a surprising dichotomy in his persona.

Milito’s criminal journey includes car theft, jewelry heists, and involvement in high-profile murders like that of “Johnny Keys” Simone, a Philadelphia mobster. Milito’s loyalty to Gravano and the Gambino crime family is highlighted through his involvement in various criminal activities under their command. However, a grave mistake occurs when Milito and Gravano mistakenly murder a 16-year-old instead of the intended target, leading to unforeseen consequences. The episode explores Milito’s continued involvement in criminal activities, including a murder ordered by the Gambino underboss, Frank DiCicco. Amidst power struggles and changes within the Gambino family, Milito’s dissent towards Gravano’s rise in the hierarchy sets the stage for his eventual downfall. As Gravano ascends through the ranks, tensions rise within the family, leading to Milito’s imprisonment for tax evasion in 1984.

The narrative culminates in Milito’s final days filled with regret and poignant discussions with his wife, Lynda. The complex dynamics of loyalty and betrayal in the organized crime world are highlighted, showcasing the precarious existence mobsters like Milito navigated. Milito’s mysterious disappearance after a meeting with Gravano hints at a tragic end to his tumultuous life. The interview provides captivating insight into the intricate web of relationships, crimes, and internal conflicts that characterized Milito’s life as a mobster.

Check out Lynda Milito’s book – Mafia Wife: A Story of Love, Muder, and Madness.

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[0:00]Well, hey guys, welcome to the studio of Gangland Wire.

Glad to be back in here. I am a retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective.

Worked a mob for about 15 years in Kansas City.

Well, guys, I’ve been talking about a lot of different mobs and a lot of different

guys in the mob over the years.

And here’s a new one that I had not heard of before.

It was kind of important in his own way.

The guy, his real name is Librio Milito. I think it’s Milito.

[0:30]Anyhow, he was affectionately known as Louis Milito, and he made his entrance

into the world on April 26, 1942.

He was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

Big Sicilian population there, a real vibrant neighborhood, a lot of corner

stores and social clubs. You know, that’s where Gotti and a lot of these other

guys were growing up and hanging out around there.

And he was born to Sicilian immigrants, and his upbringing was shaped by that

rich cultural tapestry of this neighborhood.

Luis Milito was a spirited youth, as they say.

He found himself drawn in the world of petty crimes, as most of these guys were.

Were, and he eventually became a member of the Rampers.

Now, the Rampers was a local street gang known for its exploits throughout Brooklyn.

And guess who else was a significant member of the Rampers?

Our good friend, Sammy the Bull Gravano. Now, despite his diminutive stature,

he was kind of a small guy. He’s five foot seven.

He was strong. He was stronger than hell. Louie Milito, You know,

his physical proudness was exceptional.

[1:46]Exceptional, they said. In his 20s, he pursued a career that you wouldn’t think

a guy like this would pursue. He became a hairdresser.

He was a hairdresser and he got interested in this art and he really liked it.

And his wife, Linda, later on will write a book.

[2:04]And she attests to his exceptional skill as a hairdresser. Now, go figure that one.

Here’s going to be, I’m going to tell you about him. He’s a stone killer with

Sammy the Bull Gravano, but he also was a hairdresser.

[2:17]Now, some of his early criminal exploits were kind of the same as a lot of these guys.

We had a crew in Kansas City that came up like this.

And what they called it was trunking. They were breaking into car trunks and stealing stuff. of.

And lots of times these guys also, they graduate into breaking into the car

trunks of jewelry salesmen and other kinds of salesmen that have some expensive

watches and things like that in their trunk.

And I know one guy used to hit golf courses. Guys would go to the golf course.

They’d stay after and play cards, lock their clubs up in their trunk.

And this guy would go hit all the cars looking for expensive golf clubs.

He also ran a pretty lucrative stolen car ring. and and he had an uncanny talent

for lock picking on everybody can’t pick a lock have you ever tried to pick

a lock it’s hard it’s damn hard i tell you what i was at a demonstration of

that and then some real simple locks that i could pick but boy when they got

even a little bit more complicated,

just like your normal lock deadbolt lock in your house i couldn’t do it it takes

a certain touch everybody can’t do it.

Now, since he came from the Rampers, he’s got all required street cred to join

Sammy the Bull Gravano and get into the Gambino family because that’s where Gravano went.

[3:41]In the mid-60s, there’s a significant turn in Louie Milito’s life.

When he began working for the Gambino crime family, they both came up like Sammy

the Bull and Louie Milito came up up under Gambino Capo, Toto Arello.

Now, I’m not sure about the pronunciation of that, pronunciation of that, but Toto Arello.

Like Sammy the Bull, Louie Mulatto came up under a Capo, a Gambino Capo named Toto Arello.

And so they both kind of had the first mentor. This will tie these two guys

together for really the rest of their lives.

It was kind of a complex life, a dance, if you will, that Louis had between

his personal life and his criminal life.

[4:29]Because most of these guys are like that. They like their family and they do

things with their family.

So despite his criminal life, he displayed a lot of affection and humor towards

his family. And his wife, again, wrote a book.

Linda was her name. You might look that up, Linda Mulatto.

And it really showed it. I think the lawyer word, the $25 lawyer word is dichotomy,

which means he’s like kind of two different people here.

He was still, you know, he was still anything.

He stole change from phone booths. He would be part of high-end burglaries and

different kinds of jewelry thefts.

And he ends up becoming involved in high-profile murders also.

I mean, this guy was multifaceted, wouldn’t you say? This guy was, he was a piece of work.

You know, he got inducted into the Gambino family under his capo, Toto Arello.

Samuel Gravano had already become a made man. And then, so, in that crew,

in that Arello crew. crew.

And so, you know, they like, you know, Sammy the Bull is kind of his mentor

and will bring him along.

[5:35]For some reason, during the 60s, Arello resigned as capo. And I’m not,

I couldn’t get the full story on that.

And Paul Castellano promotes Sammy the Bull Gravano to be Mulatto’s new boss, that Arello crew boss.

You know, they say that his loyalty, Louie’s loyalty was a a cornerstone of his character.

He was fiercely devoted to Sammy the Bull. I mean, fiercely devoted to him.

He had to have been to do some of the things he did with him.

Like he took part in the murder of the Philadelphia mobster, Johnny Key Simone.

[6:06]This Johnny Key Simone, he was from Philly, but this was done on the order of

Paul Castellano, but it was also approved by the commission.

They approved it by the commission approved this because they’d also approved

the new Philly capo, Nicky Scarfo, to take over as boss of the Philly family

after the murder of the General Don Angelo Bruno.

Nicky Scarfo asked the commission to eliminate a potential threat from Simone.

He felt that Simone would be more loyal to Bruno and less loyal to him and maybe

even feel like he had been pushed aside. side.

So Sammy the Bull and our friend Louie the hairdresser, they kidnap,

Simone, Johnny Keyes, from a New Jersey country club called the Skyview Country Club.

They threw him bound and gagged in the back of a van, and they took a trip out

to Staten Island to a kind of out-of-the-way place where they could bury him

right away. Probably already had the whole dug, don’t you imagine?

[7:11]Samuel Gravano had planned this murder out before and then brought Louie along. long.

During this trip, Johnny Keyes, Simone, asked Gravano and Mulatto to let him die like a man.

And here’s an interesting thing. And we know this because Gravano had to admit

this was one of the murders he had to admit to.

During this trip, it was about 75 miles, Johnny Keyes had a heart attack.

Go figure, he had a heart attack.

[7:39]

Fatal Mistake on King’s Highway

[7:39]He asked if he could take a nitro tablet so

he’d stay alive long enough to be shot and he

said i want to die like a man so that’s

another thing johnny johnny that’s another thing that sammy the bull will say

that he probably respected johnny keith simone because he died like cosinostra

now on august 16th 1970 sammy the bull gervano and louis mulatto were driving

on king’s highway near west 8th street in graves inn in Brooklyn.

Got a whole story on Grey’s Inn and on, what is it, Netflix or one of them.

Sammy the Bull had a cast on his right ankle due to, do that over again.

Now, Sammy the Bull had a cast on his right ankle, was limping around,

and he got this in a scuffle kind of a thing that happened when his nightclub

was robbed by a guy named Aldo Candido.

Well, he thought he knew Aldo Candido and Gravano and Milano were, as usual, packing.

They had their pieces on them that night.

And as they’re driving down this King’s Highway around 8th Street,

if you know where that is in Brooklyn, Gravano all of a sudden yells out to

Louie, he said, pull over. That’s the guy that robbed my place.

Both the guys jumped out and ran up the guy and blasted him several times in the head and the chest.

[9:01]Dropped like a sack of potatoes. And, you know, they jumped back in the car and got out of there.

They cowboyed that one. That’s not something that a mob guy normally does is

cowboy a hit quite like that.

[9:12]And, you know, when you do something like that, that you don’t normally do,

there can be a problem. And there was a problem.

This was not Aldo Candido, the guy that robbed Sammy the Bull.

This was 16-year-old Alan Kaiser, who just happened to be walking down the street,

minding his own business.

Now, some people say Alan looked like him.

Yeah, I’ve seen the pictures. He looked older. He had like a mustache and he

did look a little older than 16, but irregardless, he was 16-year-old kid.

And Sammy acted acted rashly, really rashly.

Normally he was a considerate business kind of a guy, considered probably is not the right word.

He was a cool character, shall we say, and he planned things out.

He didn’t take risks. That was a huge risk.

I mean, what if a police car driven

[10:03]

Continuing Criminal Activities

[10:01]around the corner about the time they jumped out and ran up to this?

1978, Louie Milito will murder again. in.

This time he did it for the Gambino underbrush, Frank DiCicco.

The victim was a mob associate named Nicholas, and this just happened to be

the brother of Gravano’s wife.

Now we know why Sammy the Bull didn’t take a direct part in this hit.

DiCicco had to bypass Gravano and give the order directly to Louie and to a

guy named Joe Stimey D’Angelo.

[10:32]Mulatto kind of said, you know, I don’t know. We should do this.

And DiCicco finally decided, and after he consulted with Paul Castellano,

that they should tell Sammy the Bull what they were up to.

And Milato was not comfortable until Sammy the Bull knew what they were doing.

And they say Castellano made this concession with one stipulation.

It’s always a hook, huh? If Gravano vehemently opposes Shibata’s killing his

brother-in-law’s killing gavanos and they’re going to kill gavano gavano i mean

this guy you know he’s got that native intelligence that he can read a room

this dude knows what type it is,

He did not dispute the murder of his brother-in-law. As the 1980s unfold and

[11:22]

Shifting Loyalties in the Family

[11:17]narcotics, cocaine takes over, and there’s just a ton of money being made there.

Loyalties are changing in the Gambino family, a lot of tension in there.

[11:27]Partly because of this Castellanos disapproval of Sammy the Bull and Louis’

grievances with him over some business deals that went awry.

And I know Castellanos also was bitching about Gravano because he was making

so much money and he thought he was keeping everything for himself.

And I think John Gotti kind of thought that, too.

Sammy the Bull can make a lot of money and Louie Malato was a lot right there

with him and they didn’t think he was sharing enough.

So 1984, Louie Malato, Louie the hairdresser,

his criminal journey, his journey in this life took a darker turn as if it didn’t

have enough dark turns already, took a darker turn and he pled guilty to tax

evasion, and he got a two-year prison sentence.

You know, it’s like a guy told me once, hey, man, I can do a trade standing on my head.

He probably told them to ask him to talk. I can see it now. Ask him to talk,

and he said, hey, man, I can do a do stand on my head, which is true.

But during his incarceration, the landscape of the Gambino crime family went

through a seismic shift in 1984.

If you remember, John Gotti, backed up by Sammy the Bull and others,

killed Paul Castellano so Gotti could take over the Gambino family.

So upon his release, Louis found himself in a Gambino family that had done,

you know, all kinds of changes and overhaul.

And Sammy moves on up. He’s an underboss.

[12:56]And Milito, he openly expressed dissent about this.

And it’s like, you know, hey, what’s going on? You know, you killed the boss.

There was a lot of people in the New York mob that didn’t agree with Gotti’s murder of Castellano.

[13:12]

Dissent Spells Trouble

[13:12]Boy, once you express your dissent like that within the family,

you pretty much are going to seal your fate, especially with this bunch of guys.

1979, 80, Louie’s wife, Linda, that began selling real estate.

And in her book later on, she’ll say, I never liked or trusted Sammy the Bull.

She just had this instinct about it. And even though Louie and Sammy were thick

as thieves, they were ball partners, buddies, they did crimes together. other.

And she actually, at Louie’s request, helped Sammy upgrade his living circumstances

and found him a nice home for a decent price and in exclusive areas.

Everybody wants to move on up, moving on up to the east side,

you know, move on out to the suburbs or whatever, move to a more expensive neighborhood,

want to be more like Paul Castellano.

I don’t Linda Louie’s wife didn’t really want to deal with Sammy the bull,

but Louie kept working on her and she finally relented.

And he, she says, I’m going to do it, but I’m not doing Sammy any favors.

I want my full commission.

Louie said, go ahead, do what you got to do. People got to pay for your services.

I don’t, nobody expects you to do this for nothing.

[14:25]

Real Estate Dealings and Discontent

[14:25]Linda found Sammy the bull a house for $375,000.

[14:30]Paid cash for it, but he actually had the cash for it, but he didn’t want to

put it all out, so he did a half mortgage.

Sammy the Bull bought that house, but then he tore it down and then built a mansion.

Almost as big as Castellano’s. People called it Sammy’s Shrine to Sammy.

His final weeks, by 1988, Louie Milito, he was kind of burdened by regret over his life.

And he had some poignant discussions with his wife, Linda, and she writes about

this in her book. Had a heartfelt conversation.

They decided they needed to go ahead and get a divorce, and he acknowledged

that the actions, his actions over his life had taken a toll on both her and

their son, Edwin’s son, Louis.

Valentine’s Day, 1988, Louis made a final visit to his wife, Linda,

left her a heart-shaped balloon and acknowledgement a written acknowledgement

of the cold realities of the world i think maybe he knew he was in trouble or

something because you know i mean that’s like kind of like leaving your jewelry

your billfold with your wife when you go to a meeting.

[15:42]

Mysterious Disappearance of Louis Milito

[15:43]But shortly after that day he met with sammy the bull gravano and nobody seems

to know exactly what happened, and his body was never recovered.

Now, I don’t think Sammy admitted to this one that he did this.

I think he felt like he didn’t have to. He must have really felt he was cool on this.

So, you know, that’s the end of Louis, the hairdresser, Milito.

And in the end, it was, he left behind a really complicated,

you know, string of relatives and friends, and he went out with a lot of pain

and regret i think that’s maybe probably expressed that to sammy the bull.

[16:21]And he was not happy the way things

had turned out with killing Paul Castellano and Sammy’s moved on up.

And more than likely, you know, this is, you know, he’d always lived his life

on this edge and loyalty and betrayal coexist with each other in that life.

There’s no doubt about it. There’s loyalty on one hand, but there’s a lot of

betrayal on the other hand.

So if you want to live in the shadows and organize crime life,

why you got to be ready for you got to be up for that kind of stuff.

Up not everybody’s up for it so thanks a lot guys i think louis malito had a

really interesting story and i wanted to bring that to you as kind of a minor

guy that i’ve never heard of before if you’re really into it you probably have

but but i had not heard of him and i just thought he was interesting especially

this relationship with his wife because i you know i like that,

kind of that dichotomy of these mobsters you know they’ve got his wife and family

that they care about and and spend a lot of time with but then on the other

hand they go over in the city or back out in the neighborhood and social club or whatever,

and, you know, kill people, you know, the cheap people that rob people and,

you know, end up spending years and years in penitentiary away from their loved ones. So go figure.

[17:33]Don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles. So watch out for motorcycles when

you’re out there on the streets.

And if you have a problem with PTSD and you’ve been in the service,

be sure and go to the VA website.

And if you have a problem with drugs and alcohol, whether you’re in the service

or not, you can go see former Gambino soldier, There’s another Gambino guy,

Anthony Ruggiano is a drug and alcohol counselor down in Florida,

and he’s got a hotline on his website.

So thanks a lot, guys. Don’t forget to like and subscribe.

[18:00]As a friend of mine says, like and subscribe down below or give me a review.

You know, I’ve got some movies out there you can rent for only,

I think, a buck ninety nine or something. Tell you about a lot more about the

Kansas City crime family.

Always doing stories a couple of times a week sometimes.

[18:16]And just let me know. So, you know, make comments on the Facebook page.

You got a big, huge, big Facebook group, 60,000 people now. It’s crazy.

Probably be more by the time you get to it. A lot of good discussions,

a lot of good photos on there and pictures.

And from mob families all over the United States. So it’s actually very little Kansas City stuff.

I put some stuff up there once in a while that another guy I know does.

But it’s from, you know, I had a guy join recently as a real expert on Springfield,

Massachusetts crime family. and they connect back to the Genovese family.

Got a couple of podcasts out there that are going to tell that story.

Of course, a lot of guys from New

York and New Jersey and Las Vegas and Milwaukee, you know, you name it.

From all over the United States. So thanks a lot, guys.

The post Louis Milito: Another Gravano Victim? appeared first on Gangland Wire.