Truth and Lies: The Last Gangster

This was originally a presentation of the ABC news show "20/20" and filled a 2 hour slot with commercials. As it stands, it runs 80 minutes with so much repetition and minor pre-commercial break build-up that I could probably edit it down to a tight hour of content.

There's lots of shocked and adamant declarations from people about how Salvatore 'Sammy the Bull' Gravano confessed to the commission of nineteen murders for which he got off easy (and he totally did), but not enough discussion of actual substance.

If we had heard both from the FBI and NYPD about what they had invested monetarily in the combined investigation of The Organisation (or Mafia, or Cosa Nostra, or whatever label you would like to use) and their estimation of the number of dead / injured / lost legally taxable dollars / number of addicts or overdoses and lost hours of work owing to all of that vs the information Sammy Gravano was able to give them which led to the effective shuttering of organized crime in the Greater New York area... well then, that would be thought provoking. ANY sentencing deal of this nature is a deal with the devil and no prosecutorial procedure is untainted with this sort of thing.

We didn't hear that, however.

Phffaaah.