Rats, roaches, and beetles the size of Chihuahuas crawl over inmates at night. Find your friends on Facebook. But killings are common in Panama's worst prison, where the smell of raw sewage wafts over the yard, metal shackles hang from moldy staircases, and overcrowded cells house nearly 3,500 of the Western Hemisphere's vilest murderers, rapists, and drug traffickers. Galeota already lived according to a gangster's code. I said, Thank you, Cali cartel. "My wife could have left me. Instead, they eat rice for lunch and dinner, drink dirty river water, and use a hole in the ground for a toilet. "Anthony has been in jail for more than 15 months, and a judge hasn't even heard his case yet!" It's not quite Shawshank Redemption, but when Tony Galeota walked out of a Panama City jail cell May 23, it was still a small serving of justice. When his younger brother was molested, he beat the suspected perpetrator to a pulp. He escaped with his life and went on the run, aiming to avoid the cartel, Interpol and US law enforcers. For a while, Panama's pay-to-play culture suited Galeota just fine. The guards leave at 5pm, and they just lock the gates, and its inmate rule at night, he says, explaining that he bribed a guard to get him in and out of the jail. "My wife can say she has regrets, but that's bullshit," he says. Log In or Sign Up Tonia Galeota See Photos Antonio Galeota See Photos Tony Galeota See Photos Toni Galea See Photos Toni Colletto See Photos Toni Torres Galea "A family type thing, like an ale house with wings and beer," he says. The year before, his father helped him land a job as a wedding DJ. Prostitutes were everywhere at the weddings, and when Tony asked another employee where they came from, the older kid took him to Manhattan's infamous West End. Instead, he says competitors pulled government strings to screw him. They tried to squeeze Fainberg to get Seidle. Tony Galletta. As Yester laid low with the cash, cartel liaisons in the United States, aware that they had been burned, pressured Almeida to show them where Yesters relatives lived in and around Miami. I told Juan, I said, Hey. Anywhere other than La Joya, this news would be shocking. All he needed now were the prostitutes. Like a real-life godfather, Galeota weathered it all. Upon seeing 10 thugs rush the vehicle and hijack it with the unsuspecting passenger in back, Yester realized that the remaining cash would not be forthcoming. And that's why drug traffickers are in the business - take something that starts off with a value of $5,000 and when you're done selling it at the retail level the value has skyrocketed. (Panama passed harsher penalties for human trafficking during Galeota's incarceration, but Galeota can't be prosecuted under laws that weren't in place when he was arrested. Tony Kaleta. Once they spotted the plane, they changed course which is suspicious for us, said Boatswains Mate 1st Class, Joshua McElhaney with the Coast Guard. Let me check.. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a criminal," Tony remembers. State and local police launched an investigation in February 2009. Instead, he's trapped in a labyrinthine legal system, alone and unable to speak Spanish. "I was always looking for their approval," he says, "but I never got that. And she launched drunken tirades at Tony after baseball games, no matter how well the all-star shortstop performed. Indeed, court records show that Seidle was a target of the federal wiretapping investigation. She's forgiven me, for the most part. "Whenever there is an American businessman involved in crime here in Panama, it becomes an important case. "Running a club in that neighborhood, win or lose, you've got to fight.". Reborn behind bars. Sixteen months later, the two men have yet to appear in court. This story has been shared 173,716 times. Over the years, Galeota saw nearly a dozen shootings at Porky's, some of them fatal. Again, the charges were dropped. The irony is not lost on Galeota that after a life of crime in Miami, he was arrested in Panama just as he was going legit. Instead, he's trapped in a labyrinthine legal system, alone and unable to speak Spanish. Guards with machine guns man rusty metal towers. Facilitating it. She is a high-powered attorney who has defended two former presidents in corruption cases, but even she hasn't been able to get Galeota out of jail yet. I flew to a little island near St. Petersburg, met with a retired Russian admiral, and he took me to the navy base, says Tarzan. Make a one-time donation today for as little as $1. And like the Italian-American crooner, he loved women a little too much. See Photos. Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. Im gonna see them in f***ing hell when I arrive there., Russell says the fugitive is probably one of the most fascinating human beings Ive ever been in a room with., He adds: Theres five other films you couldve made about his life and life experiences, and yet he was charming and cultured and funny and also, then, on a dime deadly serious, not somebody that you trifle with. "I used to have to patch Tony up all the time," Kristy says. "There was no transportation, no cops, no nothing," he says. He sold the shop and in 2010 opened Bongos, a restaurant serving wings and beer. A large Russian man called Tarzan sits in an armchair against the backdrop of a cracked and stained wall, a pack of cigarettes, lighter and an ash tray on a table to his left, and he shrugs as he talks about a deal he tried to broker more than 20 years ago. They were very compliant to everything we asked of them, said McElhaney. . They were all together when Tony worked for the Russin mobsters in Porky's club as its manager. The crew boarded the 165-foot Panamanian-flagged coastal freighter Hope II. Tony went on the run with the money the drug cartel provided up front, however, as authorities closed in - meaning the deal never happened, Tarzan got deported, Juan was (temporarily) convicted on drug charges and Tony became a fugitive not just from justice but from the hit that was put out on his head. and help keep the future of New Times, Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our. 16:56 GMT 13 Mar 2018 Police repeatedly raided the club, yet Galeota escaped unscathed every time. It was a caper, for sure., He says: Tarzan was the lynchpin to it, because it was his story. It had been ten years since U.S. Indeed, Havana Club has already reopened. He left, but returned with a gun. "I couldn't take all the people who wanted to come.". He answered only to property owner William Seidle, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court trustee who ran a chain of car dealerships. Bonnie also shoplifted booze to sustain her hard drinking habit. "Maybe we didn't have the permits we were supposed to have, but we're foreigners who didn't understand the rules.". Galeota is no angelic Andy Dufresne, the main character in Shawshank who serves two decades behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. And she launched drunken tirades at Tony after baseball games, no matter how well the all-star shortstop performed. "She would use shoe polish to change our driver's licenses so we could go to clubs and drink when we were 15. Director Tiller Russell tells DailyMail.com that hed heard rumblings and rumors about the insane deal, but it was about seven years ago when he first got a concrete lead about Tarzan and his cronies. independent local journalism in Miami. He didn't stay long. "It was a real moneymaker. The trio convened in Russia, and snapshots of them aboard the football-field-size sub, posing with the captain, hamming it up with one another, were shown to cartel members to make clear that the submarine sale closed with all parties naked in a bathhouse was for real. There was a spate of murders, several police raids, and a federal drug-trafficking trial. Behind him, 12-foot-high fences topped with spools of barbed wire frame a muddy soccer field. Jimmy Galeota has spent the last month-and-a-half grieving his older brother Michael's death - but perhaps the most difficult part of it all to swallow has been the bizarre circumstances that. His father, Arnold, was a strait-laced sales manager but a distant and disapproving dad. When he heard that his old partner in crime from Porky's had moved to Panama, he flew in to meet with Galeota. I know its gonna be a strange question. For 18 years, Galeota ran Porky's with the same punishing justice he learned from the mob and transformed it into Miami's most notorious whorehouse, where Russian gangsters and Cuban criminals spent millions on sex and drugs. "Now I'm living in hell.". Indeed, Tony would turn Porky's into a moneymaking machine. Panamanian police had been casing the Doll House, Moulin Rouge, and another joint, called Havana Club, for weeks. Greed got the better of him. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Moment teenager crashes into back of lorry after 100mph police race, Ken Bruce finishes his 30-year tenure as host of BBC Radio 2, Family of a 10-month-old baby filmed vaping open up, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Insane moment river of rocks falls onto Malibu Canyon in CA, Fleet-footed cop chases an offender riding a scooter, Ukrainian soldier takes out five tanks with Javelin missiles. Tarzan and Tony went so far as to gain access to a Soviet naval base and be taken on a tour of a submarine potentially for sale, even cajoling Russian military officials to pose for photos - which they used to prove to the Colombians that a deal could be brokered (and which are shown in the film). Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. June 4, 2013 Nobody was impressed more than Kristy Sharpe, an 18-year-old waitress from Orlando with blond hair, blue eyes, and lightly freckled skin. Shea fatally blasted bouncer Richard Jimenez in the face and then opened fire on the dancers, shooting one in the chest and another in the head. They put a hit out on him when he disappeared with the money, while Juan and Tarzan took the legal fall in Miami. It was like this super weird, incredibly sketchy circumstance that we came together in, Russell tells DailyMail.com of his visit to the Mad Max-like prison where at night they lock the gates. "This case has had a big impact here," says Jos Otero, a reporter for Panamanian newspaper La Prensa. Here, Galeota is just one of 500 prisoners crammed into a filthy cell block designed to hold 200 people. This story has been shared 121,048 times. Tarzans on board and essentially youre in the movie, one way or another. Then I ended up spending a great deal of what I like to call social engineering, which is kind of like the hanging out with all these guys theyre all very secretive cats with these very sketchy kind of criminal pasts. Galeota is no angelic Andy Dufresne, the main character in Shawshank who serves two decades behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. Years later, Tarzan again found himself behind bars, this time in Panama; in fact, he was serving time in 2011 when Russell first approached him for the documentary. More detailed reports on the crimes weren't available. But the hassle had taken its toll on him. During a visit last month, a New Times reporter witnessed one police official receive a $20 bill in a barely disguised handshake. And so from there, Juan showed up in Moscow with a vague, half-assed agreement with Tarzan he still had gotten me to come there without agreeing to be in the film, and he put me through the paces of taking me to the sauna and sort of took me on this insane kind of underworld tour of Moscow. Kristy caught Tony cheating several times, she says. "They murdered a guy in here a couple of days ago," Tony Galeota says. He was hilarious and charming and garrulous, and it was as if hed stepped right out of a Scorsese movie, Russell says, adding: You know whats the funny thing people dont know about docs? Between the restaurant and the Doll House, he was making enough to retire in five years. Miami's independent source of I just called a friend who had a friend and asked if he could get us a sub. Coast Guard members who seized the cocaine said this is what their jobs are all about. "I brought in music and women," Galeota says. (CBS Miami). The gig introduced him to a lifelong vice. During the Doll House raid, they found marked bills in the register and several grams of pot on a promoter. "I wouldn't leave a dog in that prison, let alone my husband.". Police repeatedly raided the club, yet Galeota escaped unscathed every time. "I've been in this business my whole life. Galeota saw an opportunity. Tony Galeota's age is expected to be 52. Then they pushed play on a cassette deck. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a. "Bill was one of the most influential people in Miami," Galeota says. We've been here for two years!' See Photos. Banks seized all seven of his apartments. South Florida's independent While another new prisoner was beaten and robbed, Galeota was untouched. Skip Ancestry main menu Main Menu CAKEGATE 2023: Bad Bunny's Restaurant Accused of Gobbling Birthday Girl's Cake, Neighborhood Nazi Jon Minadeo Peddles Hate by the Minute, Sen. Rubio's Permanent Daylight Savings Bill Sees Light of Day Once More, NFL Legend Ray Lewis Joins World Jai-Alai League Board of Directors, Affordable New "Micro-Units" Slated for Little River, Edgewater. "They shot him in the middle of the night," Galeota continues quietly, "and buried his body behind the pavilion.". Tarzan managed to get light punishment for his 1997 conviction; he rolled over on Almeida and spent 30 months behind bars before being deported to Israel, where his family had immigrated, in 1999. According to Yester, the cartel provided an initial payment of $10 million. Tarzan, Almeida and Yester had previously teamed on multimillion-dollar deals for Colombian cocaine barons, snagging motorcycles and Kamov 32 military helicopters (with two rotors and capable of transporting 5,000 kilos of cocaine via hook). The year before, his father helped him land a job as a wedding DJ. Somewhere between his native Ukraine, Israel, and Russia, he'd shed his trademark long hair and changed his name to Alon Bar. By the mid-'90s, Galeota had turned Porky's into a one-stop shop for strippers, sex, and serious drugs. "The first month, we had $15,000 in gross sales. But Monday morning, when it came time to walk out of La Joya, there was no vehicle waiting. Its Colombian dancers were in Panama on six-month tourist visas, weren't licensed as prostitutes, and weren't getting required weekly health checkups. He offered protection and gave Galeota $200. This time, I'm innocent.". As the couple drove south on I-95, they thought they were leaving the worst behind them. or. At night, the guards lock the gate and leave, turning over control of each cell block to prisoners. As for Yester taking a flier with the cartel money, Tarzan says he would have done the same himself if he could have and expresses no hard feelings. "I want to go legit when I get out, but if the economy is bad, I might go back to the industry," he says. Prostitutes were everywhere at the weddings, and when Tony asked another employee where they came from, the older kid took him to Manhattan's infamous West End. Galeota's sheer size and mob connections are the only things keeping him from getting shivved in the dark. There was nothing unusual about it. All the main players involved appear on camera and share their stories, including law enforcement, from which the documentary takes its name; Operation Odessa was formed as a joint task force in the 1990s as American authorities worried that Colombian cartels would join together with Russian organized crime to pair drug money with Soviet military hardware. But this was Hialeah.". With little oversight, military leaders acted as if they were independent of the government. You could not mislead him in any way or you could tell that the consequences could be serious, but I loved him. But instead of classical music, his specialty is sex. As for his career, his only oath is that he won't let his sons follow his example. In January 1997, after he dropped his daughter off at school, Tarzan was arrested and hit with a 30-count federal indictment. Garrulous and bearish, the dentist-turned-hood (practicing the former in the Soviet Union and training for the latter in Brighton Beach) routinely carried two pistols and operated out of his. Log In. The drugs will be turned over to the DEA. Update information for Tony Galeota . "It is with tremendous heartfelt sadness to announce the passing of Michael James Gal "Another night at Porky's, another shooting," he remembers now from his prison cell in Panama. Tony Galeta. The Coast Guard said four suspected smugglers were taken into custody and 32 bales of cocaine were found in the water. "I was just numb.". The message was that the cocaine traffickers would kill Yesters family members. MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) The Coast Guard offloaded about $93 million of cocaine Thursday afternoon on Miami Beach. Everything here has a cost.". People named Tony Galeota Find your friends on Facebook Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. "A family type thing, like an ale house with wings and beer," he says. "It was a very violent atmosphere," he says. It was coke or pimping or messing with the wrong people.. He called his cartel contacts and arranged to meet them in the pickup area of the Madrid train station. If I were to make this story up and pitch it as a writer, producers would be like, Thats the worst pitch Ive ever heard. Behind him, 12-foot-high fences topped with spools of barbed wire frame a muddy soccer field. "I lived it up in Miami," he says. Anthony Galeota was born October 17, 1968, on Long Island. Filthy and crowded cell block of La Joya Prison, Panama. But Monday morning, when it came time to walk out of La Joya, there was no vehicle waiting. And like the Italian-American crooner, he loved women a little too much.