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From Mafia to Ministry

Our American Stories / Lee Habeeb
The Truth Network Radio
July 3, 2024 3:03 am

From Mafia to Ministry

Our American Stories / Lee Habeeb

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July 3, 2024 3:03 am

Robert Borelli, a former member of the Gambino crime family, recounts his life of crime and addiction, from his early days as a teenager to his eventual involvement in organized crime, and his subsequent transformation through witness protection and Christian ministry.

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Here now is Robert Borelli. Grew up in Brooklyn, New York, formed in Rockaway. Childhood was a little rough, you know, it was hard making ends meet. It was a poor neighborhood that I lived in. Mom and dad worked really hard to try to make ends meet, and it was a challenge for them. So at an early age, I really didn't want to be like my mom or my dad, having the struggles that they had.

And a lot of times, some of the arguments that would happen in the home were about mostly time, about finances, not making enough money to pay school bills, rents, and stuff like that. And then you had in the Vietnam War, just people from a little bit older than me coming back into the neighborhood and drugged out and drinking and in the streets, a lot of them, you know, and didn't want to be like those guys that I looked up to before they went to the war. And then we had the guys in the neighborhood who kind of protected the neighborhood, and they got a lot of respect, and I gravitated more towards that lifestyle.

So, you know, back in those days, gangs were pretty big, a lot bigger than they are, I believe they are today. Every street corner had a gang, so I was part of the F&R gang, which actually is one of John Gotti's neighborhood gangs. You see, a lot of the gangs would be named after the street corners that you hung out on. So I hung out on Fulton and Rockaway Avenue, so it was called F&R. Then you had other people that were hung out on Eastern Parkway, but still extreme, they were called the EP.

So that's been named by gangs a lot of times after the environment that we were around, the corners that we hung out on. I wasn't really good with school, you know, I don't know if I was something wrong with me, and you know, back in them days, I didn't have a lot of testing for stuff like that, but I just didn't do well in school. So I really didn't like school, I didn't really want to go to school, I know I had to go for a certain period of time. But for the course of that, I started gravitating towards those guys in the social club, because they seemed to get all the respect, they had the things that I would want for myself in the future, like nice car, clothes, you know, money in your pocket, things that I didn't see my family could afford. And I gravitated towards them and started hanging out with them, little, you know, as a young kid and then playing pool, they allowed me to go in the club and hang out with them.

And if they had a card game, I'd serve sandwiches, maybe make a couple of dollars in tips, and I mean, I thought that was it. So at a early age, I have to be honest with you, some people wanted to be firemen, policemen, I wanted to be a gangster. I started hanging out in the social club, they're making a couple of hours here and there, and then little by little, I started hanging out with them a little bit more and more.

Matter of fact, I would sneak out of my house at night time just to go to one of the clubs and hang out and make a couple of hours. So at the age of 17 years old, I started hanging out in Queens. And one of the gentlemen that I started hanging out with became my friend.

His father was one of the big shots in the neighborhood and they gave me no client family. So he would start bringing me around that his father would have these big banquet kind of things, we called them big spreads every Friday night. And a lot of the tough guys from the neighborhood would come to this here and have a dinner and he'd be at the one edge of the table. And his son used to bring me with him. I was 17 years old at that point in time. And I was just very impressed with the respect that his dad was getting.

But then again, being such a young kid, being around these older guys who seemed to have all the money, I don't know, it just was something that's hard to really explain about what I felt at that time, except I felt very privileged and special to be around that environment at such a young age. You know, they would have card games in the clubs and, you know, one of the things that these guys are very smart. They didn't want people to get up from the card game because it would slow down the card game. That's how they made their money by keeping the card game going. So instead of them getting up if they were thirsty or hungry, they would have somebody if they wanted to drink or something, serve them.

So kind of like if you've seen the Sopratos, they showed that a little bit in the Sopratos show. So I would be one of the guys that, if they wanted a sandwich, I'd make them a sandwich, bring it to them, they would tip me. If they wanted a drink like Coca-Cola or something like that, they really didn't want anybody getting drunk at the table, so liquor wasn't really there. But that's how it started. And then I would get maybe fireworks. They would give me like a trunk full of fireworks, and I would sell the fireworks, make a couple of dollars there.

Run numbers for them, all those little things that started it up at a young age. But when I got a little bit older, 17, and then 18 years old, we used to hang out in the bars, and at the age of 18 years, somebody got killed in a bar fight, and I was wanted. Me and another friend of mine was wanted for the murder, and my friend's father hid me and my friend out for about a year and a half before I ended up getting locked up for that case. And because when I got locked up, I kept my mouth shut, did the right thing according to the codes of the street and the mob rules, I was just lifted up, and when I came out, everybody would be parading me around as, you know, an associate that gave me no crime family. So I accepted the case, but I did finally get locked up a year and a half later.

I didn't just get locked up for the murder that I was wanted for, but there was another one tacked on to me, and then also possession of a weapon. One of the cases I really didn't have anything to do with, I was there, but I didn't do any killing, but because I kept my mouth shut and waited for bail and did the right thing, according, like I said, the street rules, when I did finally get bailed out, that's when I was paraded around as the up-and-coming star, and there'd be no crime family. And I would be meeting all the guys on Mulberry Street where all the big shots hung out, captains and underbosses, and then even be parading around to other families, and I would be and then even be parading around to other families, of course there was five families in New York, and be paraded around with them, and that would be, I don't know, it just really went to my head, and it seemed like a task that I had to keep the reputation that I developed.

It was considered an honor. Let's just put it this way, you knew the occupation kind of thing, you know, like a fireman knows he's going to go to a fight, there's going to be some hazard things that happen. One of the few words, you know you're breaking the law so early you're going to get locked up.

The only thing that they used to try to explain to me is make sure the crime is worth the time. And you've been listening to Robert Borelli tell one heck of a story. His early life struggles with his parents, listening to them fight over finances mostly. He's not a school guy, he says quite frankly, he says I didn't like school, I was no good at school. And then of course he gravitates towards those social clubs, to the guys who get a lot of respect in the neighborhood as he sees it, and in the end as he put it, some people want to be firemen, some kids want to be policemen, I wanted to be a gangster. At the age of 17 he started hanging out in Queens, becoming friends with one of the dads who had been a bigwig in the Gambino clan. And these were big crime families at the time, not like today where organized crime is much more scattered, Rico changed all of that. At the age of 18 someone got killed in a bar fight, he got locked up, he didn't talk, he did his time, he got out, he got promoted essentially, locked up again, did his time right, promoted again.

At the University of the Mafia, that's how you get your stripes. When we come back, more of Robert Burley's story, here on Our American Stories. This summer excitement starts behind the wheel of an all-electric BMW. Experience the BMW i4 that's confident, quick, and unmistakably BMW, or feel the thrill of the electric BMW iX with its elevated design and unrelenting performance. This season's excitement starts at the electric BMW summer sales event, BMW the ultimate electric driving machine.

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Let's pick up where we last left off. You know, I got involved with the drug business, drug business got involved with my business, and that's what shook my head. So it was kind of like maybe a badge of honor in the sense that you got locked up, kept your mouth shut, did the right thing, and then came back out. And you know, in a three-year party, if you were going away, I'd been in and out of prison from 1975 to 1999, in and out. And they told you a little party before you went to prison, and then when you came out, they kind of tried to take care of you as best they could. Drugs was taboo, you know, everybody else might have been out in the streets getting high or whatever they were doing, smoking pot. But with the guys in the club, that was taboo. You didn't, they didn't want anybody around them that used drugs.

When I started going to Mulberry Street back in 1975, 1976, it was kind of being accepted that some of the guys would, we'd hang out in a bar, you know, do a little coke and kind of became a little bit more acceptable in a sense. But I took it over, I think I was an OCD kind of guy, obsessive compulsive disorder, because no matter what I got involved in, I went to the extremes with, whether it was gambling, drugs, girls, you name it. I just was over the top with a lot of those addictions that I had. Did everything that was asked of me, you know, if anything was asked. I was told a long time ago, never ask us why, just do what we tell you to do. And that stood with me for a long period of time.

So if they asked me to do something, whatever it is that they might have asked, I would just do it, not ask any questions. And of course, you know, they made money on it. I made a couple of dollars on it. So yeah, at one point in time, I was an asset for them. But when the drugs started getting, I started getting involved a little bit deeper with the drugs, then that became a problem for them. But for me, I had to be the extremist. In other words, I couldn't be just one of the tough guys. I wanted to be the biggest tough guy. I wanted to be the most toughest guy in the neighborhood. So my reputation was pretty big for me. So I did whatever it took to hold that reputation. So one of the things I could tell you is I remember there, John Gotti and them were having a feast, a block party for the neighborhood that his club was in.

And then something had happened a couple of weeks before that there, somebody got shot up, didn't get killed, but he got shot up. And of course, I got the blame for that, you know, and John Gotti knew, heard about it. And he had sent his guys to come and meet me, to come and see me, to go and meet him. But I was with a different guy, same family, but a different guy was my go-to guy. And I would tell him that, you know, I can't go there. I wasn't a straightened out guy.

I couldn't meet him, but if he wanted to see me, he'd have to go see this guy, Nicky, who I was around. So, I mean, that was one of the things how I thought that life operated a little bit. For me, fighting was the way of getting a good reputation. You know, making money was another way of getting a good reputation, throwing your money around. One of the things that I think people know a lot about me was I didn't value my own life and people knew that the way I was living. And therefore, I think a lot of people knew I wasn't going to value their life neither.

And I think that's what made me more of a feared guy than anything else. In 1996, I became homeless. I was living in the streets of Atlantic City. So the streets that I used to, I mean, Atlantic Avenue, the streets that I used to strut so proudly were the streets that I was kind of living off of at that point in time. So the whole year of 1996, 1996, I was homeless.

So the reputation was gone. I was more of an embarrassment to the people that had a lot of respect for me. And the people that I was around doing a lot of things for in the mafia lost a lot of respect for me.

And kind of like a hopeless case, they tried to help me numerous times, but I kept falling back. And crack became the love of my life. To be honest, crack cocaine became the love of my life. So out to the point of a pinnacle part would be that in 1997, I got arrested by two water officers, which I call them today, my angels. And the reason why I call them my angels is because that's the last time I had a drink and a drug was when that's the last time I got arrested. And I was arrested for casing Queens for drugs. And then the FBI was looking for me for a case in Florida when I was living out there back in 95. And I was doing things for the mom back then that had to cool my act up. The pinnacle part of it was me sitting in jail, trying to get money for a good attorney to get me out of the mess that I got myself into. And then also trying to get commissary money because I know I'm not going to get any bail to live as comfortable as I possibly can during my incarceration. And calling up a lot of people, I see that nobody wants to come to help me. They actually believed that I was safer in jail than safer out in the streets.

And I'm including my own family on this. So I had a sense of complete hopelessness in how I felt. And then my daughter's mom, my daughter was born in 1993 and I walked out of her life to get high and stood out of her life seven weeks after she came home. And her mother was allowing me to talk to her. And I was calling her on the phone and she was crying this one time. And I said, Brianna, why are you crying?

She said, because she won't come in seeming. Now, probably if I could have got high or ran and got Medicaid to myself in any way, shape, and form at that point in time, I thought I would have did. But instead what happened is my heart just shattered into pieces because I remember so many times that I was in the neighborhood.

Whether the mom would have let me see it or not, that's not even the issue was is that I never even attempted to go see my daughter because I'd rather stay high on crack cocaine than deal with my responsibility of my daughter. And my heart shattered and I ran back to my cell and I knew about God, but I didn't know God. I was raised Roman Catholic.

I'm not saying all Roman Catholics believe what I believe, but I knew about a God, but I didn't know God. And I ran back to my cell and I just gained God ultimatum. I said, Lord, if you're real, and I didn't even use the word Lord because I didn't understand that neither. I said, God, if you're real, either have somebody kill me or change me because I don't want to live with the pain that I'm living like anymore. So I could, I guess it was a cry for help, a despair cry for help. And God answered those friends, man, I'm here today talking about it.

And you've been listening to Robert Borelli and what a story he's telling. He talked about the extremes he went to with his addiction and always he said he did what was asked of him by his bosses, but my goodness, the drugs got the best of him. And in the end, as he put it, he didn't value his own life, but he also knew that people who knew that knew he wouldn't value theirs. Crack cocaine in the end would become the love of his life, he said. He was arrested and this time with no help from anyone and no bona fides to pile up.

Even his family thought he'd be safer in prison than out. And that was when he dropped to his knees. So often in life, this happens to so many of us. He drops to his knees and asks God, well, actually he gives God an ultimatum.

If you're real, have someone kill me or change me. And God, as Robert put it, as Robert put it, answered his prayers. When we come back, more of Robert Borelli's story here on Our American Stories. High Five Casino is a social casino with real prizes and big Vegas hits at highfivecasino.com. The hottest games right from Vegas and all winnings go straight to your bank account.

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Let's pick up where we left off. The movie Goodfellas, if you watch, is a cut-actoring movie with people from my neighborhood, different family, crime family, people from my neighborhood, people who I know. And Tommy DeSimone is the one that Joe Pesci plays in that movie. Well, they show him getting killed and having a funeral, but actually, Tommy DeSimone, there was no funeral. Until today, nobody found his body. It was my girlfriend in 1979, but it was Tommy DeSimone's wife from the movie Goodfellas.

And he disappeared. He was killed and buried someplace, I don't know where or anything about it, but she became my girlfriend after that there. And it was just a thing where, you know what, a relationship, you can bring out the worst things in two people, and that's kind of the relationship that I had. But I had to get permission from my guy to make sure that what they were telling me, that he wasn't around any longer because you can't go with somebody's wife in that lifestyle.

So I had to make sure that it was accurate, that he was gone, he wasn't coming back, and that I started dating her. Those were all death sentences. You sleep with somebody's wife, that would be a death sentence.

If you kill somebody that was involved with somebody, another family member or your own family member, without getting permission, you would probably get killed. There was just a lot of, you didn't rat on anybody, you kept your mouth shut, you did your time. The bottom line is, regardless of what was going on when you were doing your time, if people were betraying you, if people were ratting on you, you had to keep your mouth shut and just do your time.

That's kind of how I grew up. Now, of course, later on in life, I didn't follow those things because, as you know, I ended up collaborating with the government and was placing a witness protection program. You know, I was in Rikers Island feeling completely hopeless, and after I cried out to God, the government was going to my mom's house in Florida, always harassing her, hey, you know, we want to try to talk to your son and all this kind of stuff. So at that point in time, nobody wanted to help me. I felt completely hopeless. I felt that was never going to be Robert the Gambino crime family associate anymore.

I lost that reputation through the drug addiction that I had. I'd been in and out of prison a lot and saying I would never touch drugs again, only to find myself back on crack, okay? And I felt like I was Robert the Crackhead.

I was probably going to die Robert the Crackhead. So when my mom told me this, I asked for their phone number, and she gave me the phone number, and I called them up, and I just like to say they speak a language that I could understand. I believe God used them for where I am today, and they gave me an offer I just didn't refuse. They said if you cooperate with us, we'll try to change your life, and we'll recommend you go to the Witness Protection Program. Of course, they can't promise you that because they're not. That's the marshal's deal with the Witness Protection Program, not the U.S.A.'s, the Assistant U.S.

Attorneys. Anyway, that's the deal, and I took that deal. I was thrown out of the Witness Protection Program, and that's what enabled me to share my testimony about how God has transformed my life. But because before that day, you couldn't tell anybody you were in the program, so that's kind of one of the roots. I mean, being, getting thrown out and being able to share my testimony. What the government ended up doing for me, you know, I had to do time, and once I got released, they bring you a place, and they kind of, I don't know how they do it, but they give you a, they check you out to see where they're going to send you, where nobody will know you, and, you know, where you might be good or fit in.

I don't know how they got all that information, but I say it this way. I feel that God gave me a taste of Abraham when he sent me to a foreign land, because when I finally got my location with San Antonio, Texas, I didn't know how a New Yorker like me with a Brooklyn accent was going to fit into Texas. But anyway, that's where I was designated. So what I believe, fear could paralyze you from doing the God, the things that God is asking you to do, the call you have on your life. And think of it this way, in my own mind, to keep me, I guess, I don't know the right word to say, to keep me sane, maybe. If I got killed, I'm going to heaven. And if I don't get killed, then I stay down here and continue doing the work that God has called me to do. While I was at Rikers Island and making all those phone calls, this one girl told me, why don't you pick up the, why don't you read your Bible?

I'm asking for help, commissary money, money for an attorney. And I thought it was just a brush, but I didn't know it was just a brush off. But after I called out to God and asked him for the help that he gave me, I wish there was a magic wand that went over me while her life changed, but that wasn't the case. But I remember what that girl said, so I started reading the word of God.

Now me, just being who I was and the way I dealt with my jail time, I would get a lot of books and read other books that occupied my time. But I felt something inside of me saying I needed to read more of the Bible, less of those books. And I just started just reading the Bible.

I gave all those books away. And then every place that the government started putting me, placing me, I was just getting more of God. So the hunger and thirst and desire I had to know more about Jesus Christ. God was fulfilling in ways that I couldn't imagine or even thought of doing myself because I really had no control once I was locked up. But every place that they were sending me, I was getting more studies, more of the word of God, baptized in one of the prisons.

So it was just a thing. And I just hung on. I just, and still today still have a greater hunger and a greater thirst for the truth of God. You know, the Bible says, I believe it's in Matthew 7 verse 7 through 12 where it says, asking, seeking and knocking.

And these are the things that I hold there. I keep on asking. I keep on seeking.

I keep on knocking for the knowledge of God's will in my life. You know, how I see it even more clearly today is we were always competing against one another. Whether you were in the same, same, same gang, and just to clear it, the S.R.R. gang was not the Gambino crime. These are just kids, gang kids.

But when an organized crime, the Gambino crime family is an organized crime, it's one of the five families in New York, in the state of New York. You're constantly competing against one another. So one gang had to outdo the other gang.

When I was a kid, that's just how it was. We had to be the toughest gang. We had to get our name out there, F and R. Matter of fact, we had a slogan that somebody came up with, F and R on the door, never ran and never will.

From the east, from the west, F and R is still the best. So I mean, it was very competitive. And I seen that there. And when I came out of prison and I seen that a lot of Christians are competing against one another, a lot of churches are competing against one. And then one of my pastors said, I wish we would start competing against one another and start completing one another.

But that's what I see. Like in the Gambino crime family, we had plenty of clubs. We all part of the Gambino crime family.

And we all try to outdo one another, even though we were part of the same family. And I see that in the Christian churches today. So I've been involved with ministry. I came out in 1999 is when I came out of prison. And I did nursing home ministry for 13 years in San Antonio and then in Dallas where I moved out to Dallas. I just want to complete somebody that's trying to seek God and work with people instead of trying to outdo them. And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling by our own Rush Jones and Micah Touche.

And a special thanks to Robert Pirelli. His book, The Witness, a tale of the life and death of a mafia madman is available on Amazon for all the usual suspects. After he cried out to God, he turned state's evidence. The government gave him an offer he couldn't refuse. He went to witness protection.

What would a guy in Brooklyn, New York do in San Antonio? He was paralyzed, he said, by fear and fear will paralyze any man from his call from God and God's call on your life. And he was sounding at that point in the interview in this story like a first class and world class theologian. And now what is he doing? Ministering to folks, ministering to them, healing them, helping them from crime to compassion, from the Godfather to the King of Kings.

The story of Robert Pirelli here on Our American Stories. Ever wolfed down a Big Mac and thought I could use some extra cash? Meet Drop, the ultimate rewards app. Earn free gift cards for getting your daily coffee or late night drive through effortlessly. Just link a card, shop and watch rewards stack. With Drop, it's like getting paid to indulge. Download Drop now and start earning. Use the code DROP22 for $5 in points instantly.

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