Public Servant

Watching the dailies and then watching the... episodes, it really hits you: 'Damn, I did that?' I must have been crazy to get into those situations.

I rarely carried a gun undercover.

In the actual story I got with the Bonannos, but I had dealings with other crime families and other criminals, using the Bonannos as my credibility.

If you're an L.C.N. guy, you don't have facial hair and you don't have long hair. You have to be neat all the time. It's the rule.

What I learned about the mob wasn't through lectures at the academy.

A good undercover agent stays as close to the truth as possible, as close to your own personality and your own values as possible. This is the way you stay in character - you try to be yourself.

I had no sense of guilt. All during the course of the operation, I knew it was a job.

I was a street guy. I mean, I grew up in an Italian neighborhood with mob guys around. Where I grew up, you gambled, you shot dice, you played cards, you went to the track. So the mob to me was not strange, it was not like I was an F.B.I. agent from Salt Lake City.

I do a lot of lecturing, at colleges and police schools, and I always get the same questions: 'Do they really kill you? What do they do with the money? How do you become a wiseguy?'

When you wear a wire, you're always in danger.

I grew up in a city, an Italian, knowing what the Mafia was.

'The Godfather' is a great movie, but it gives them too much credit. What you don't see is what really takes place: the in-fighting, the lying to each other, the scheming against each other to get power.

'Our thing' is turning into 'my thing' within the Mafia, just as the larger American society is facing the new realities of the 'me generation.'

I was Donnie Brasco, the Mafia guy, in character. But in my head, I was a special agent. I never lost sight of who I was or why I was there.

One thing I take great pride in is that my case was the one that started the decline of the Mafia.

I didn't try to be a tough guy. I didn't try to be a big mobster. I was who I was. I didn't stop doing what I normally did. I worked out. I lifted weights. I ran. That's what I usually did.

I'm always leery about bumping into somebody. One time I was with my wife in a restaurant, I saw somebody from my undercover days, and I got up and we just walked out.

I knew how wiseguys acted. I knew the mentality. I knew things to do and not to do. Keep your mouth shut at certain times. Don't get involved in things that don't concern you. Walk away from conversations and situations that aren't your business, before anybody asks you to take a hike.

As a teen-ager I played cards, shot craps, played pool, went to the track, hung around social clubs. I knew that some card and crap games were run by the mob, and some social clubs were mob social clubs. Even as a kid I knew guys that were here today, gone tomorrow, never seen again, and I knew what had happened.

I like horses.