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When he was 16, he knocked up his 15-year-old girlfriend at Hauppauge High School. "I brought in music and women," Galeota says. In the distance, La Cordillera de San Blas cuts through the Panamanian jungle like a serrated knife. All he needed now were the prostitutes. More than anything, Galeota is grateful that his family kept faith in him. His Doll House dream began at Porky's. Instead, Galeota admits he's done bad things, such as running Miami's most infamous strip club, Porky's, for years before moving to Panama and opening a brothel. He knew that the owners of a local strip club called Moulin Rouge David Fridman and Jake Lita (an Israeli wanted by German police on human-trafficking charges) had a business offer for the duo. Prosecutors say police never filed the necessary paperwork. I know its gonna be a strange question. "It was a real moneymaker. Its a great success overall. Get the latest updates in news, food, music and culture, and receive special offers direct to your inbox. So the translator said she couldn't take a shower, didn't show up, and the case was delayed. They'd use their connections with immigration officials to obtain visas and prostitution licenses and then give Tarzan and Tony 40 percent of the profits to run a new club, called the Doll House. Galeota and his "girls" in the Doll House, before the bust. Theres this crazy Russian gangster who sold a submarine to the Cali drug cartel; his name is Tarzan and hes locked in a Panamanian prison and he had a Blackberry And he said, Do you want his number?, And I said, Hell, yes! "Thank God I'm out," he tells New Times in his first interview since his release. Running an underworld operation in Cocaine Cowboys-era Miami wasn't an easy gig. Because of his age, he escaped with six months' probation. More detailed reports on the crimes weren't available. While he, Tarzan and Juan were dealing with the Colombians and while Tony and Tarzan even got onto a Russian military naval base to tour a possible submarine for the deal the entire time the Cuban was planning to rip off the Colombians. Instead, they eat rice for lunch and dinner, drink dirty river water, and use a hole in the ground for a toilet. Instead of celebrating, he walked through the scuzzy neighbourhood until he found a shabby motel. 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. Join Facebook to connect with Anthony Galeota and others you may know. And so with like five days prep I jumped on a plane, went to Miami, started courting the cops and the feds and the US attorneys and all the good guys, the law enforcement side of it their participation was instrumental in it, because theyre the ones that have all the evidentiary record and all the surveillance video and the photos and the wiretaps and all that stuff, most of which is the sort of visual skeleton to the film. He answered only to property owner William Seidle, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court trustee who ran a chain of car dealerships. "That's the goal," is all he'll offer. As he sweated in jail, Galeota's Panamanian empire crumbled. Tony Galeto. Galeota has seen several murders. "I lived it up in Miami," he says. and help keep the future of New Times, Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our, running Miami's most infamous strip club, Porky's, Tony Galeota: From Running Porky's, Miami's Most Notorious Strip Joint, to Rotting in a Panamanian Jail, Sex and Drugs in the Champagne Room: The Truth About Porky's and Other Miami Strip Clubs. But in South Florida, he was once a strip club king. Docs need stars just like features need stars. When he left to open a bona fide brothel in Panama, Galeota thought the country's lax prostitution laws would make him rich. In the meantime, he's spending time with his wife and kids. But Tony had darker secrets. Galeota is one of several Americans locked up here. It was a weeknight, and Porky's was washed in pale-pink neon light. Prisoners eat stale bread and a slice of cheese for breakfast; rice and sometimes beans is their lunch and dinner. But the Doll House and Moulin Rouge remain closed. Follow this journalist on Twitter @MikeMillerMiami. And he hopes to open a place in Fort Lauderdale when he's back. If any official asks you to pay for anything, please report them.". And like the Italian-American crooner, he loved women a little too much. Police again surrounded Porky's in the early hours of May 9, 2009. Tony was a tough, muscular little shit back then. Use tab to navigate through the menu items. On a crowded balcony overlooking La Joya, Galeota describes the past 16 months as a nightmare. Tony Galeota Age And Family. "I thought I would kick up my heels together like 'Oh my God, I'm finally out,'" he says. "My family didn't care; they took it," Galeota says of the stolen goods. one of the kids shouted as he pulled a handkerchief over his face and wildly swung a revolver. Nobody was impressed more than Kristy Sharpe, an 18-year-old waitress from Orlando with blond hair, blue eyes, and lightly freckled skin. He offered protection and gave Galeota $200. Yester told the Colombians that theyd have to pay $35 million for the vessel, even though Tarzan had talked the price down to $5.5 million plus just $600 for a crew to pilot it to Colombia. And then Russell got a text message out of the blue. "I'm not a religious person, but I believe I went to jail because I was living like a rock star -- running around with all these women, drinking a bottle of vodka every day for two years," he says. Tony Galeota's age is expected to be 52. More than anything, Galeota is grateful that his family kept faith in him. "Now I'm living in hell.". But he insists that, for once, he has done nothing wrong. "There was probably a lot more fun going on at Porky's than we even knew of," says one Hialeah police officer who asked not to be identified. But the story of how the documentary got made is nearly as crazy as the caper plot itself. See also: "From Porky's to Panamanian Prison: Web Extra.". Get the latest updates in news, food, music and culture, and receive special offers direct to your inbox. Almeida was a specialist in obtaining black-market goods for status-crazed drug dealers. His name was Tony Galeota, he said, and he had run Porky's for 18 years before being locked up in Panama's worst prison for a crime he didn't commit. As he contemplates the question, Galeota watches his fellow inmates kick a soccer ball across La Joya's putrid playground. So we met with a realtor, got high, and Tony got stupid with money. Tarzan eventually testified against Juan and was deported to Israel, where he recanted his testimony meaning Juans conviction for conspiracy to traffic cocaine was overturned and he went free. While out of sight, he phoned his guy and lied about being in a particular taxi cab. When he heard that his old partner in crime from Porky's had moved to Panama, he flew in to meet with Galeota. Become a member to support the independent voice of South Florida . We break down the best movies and series to watch in November in theaters and streaming. Next time, I will steal it back from him., Tarzan (left) at the site of the submarine. And, above all, selling it. Become a member to support the independent voice of South Florida You could not mislead him in any way or you could tell that the consequences could be serious, but I loved him. "But I've always paid for everything, either with stitches in my head, concussions, or jail time. The two ran Porky's for another decade after Fainberg's deportation. And there was absolutely no bullshit. For the most part, Doll House dancers agree. But the men kept in touch as Russell pursued other projects, with Tarzan sending random messages such as Christmas greetings until he finally sent the email the filmmaker had been awaiting (although he couldnt have guessed the other crazy details in the communication. "Thank God I'm out," he tells New Times in his first interview since his release. Police repeatedly raided the club, yet Galeota escaped unscathed every time. (CBS Miami). See Photos. With dark hair and pale, wide-set eyes, teenage Tony resembled a stocky Frank Sinatra. Moreover, trafficking prostitutes and drugs and involvement in organized crime are some serious charges.". Dancers with names like Baby Doll, Tipsie, Trixie, and Crme offered to have sex with the cops for as little as $150, court records show. Reborn behind bars. The lessons in crime didn't come fast enough for Galeota to stay out of trouble. But then the country's corrupt system turned on them. And, above all, selling it. A judge eventually dropped the human trafficking charge, but Galeota still rotted in his sordid cell alongside insects the size of small dogs. Over the years, Galeota saw nearly a dozen shootings at Porky's, some of them fatal. Family members can also bring them food and clean water, however, and inmates bribe guards to smuggle in additional items. He paid for her to secretly get an abortion. When he was 16, he knocked up his 15-year-old girlfriend at Hauppauge High School. With dark hair and pale, wide-set eyes, teenage Tony resembled a stocky Frank Sinatra. His mother, Bonnie Gellilti, was "a bit of a. For two decades, Galeota managed Porky's, a Hialeah dive notorious for drugs, prostitution, and violence, where he was part pimp, part bouncer, and completely untouchable. "I lived it up in Miami," he says. It was coke or pimping or messing with the wrong people.. ", After bribing half the guards at La Joya, Galeota was taken to an immigration holding center in Panama City where he and four codefendants were kept for four more days. "The worst part of being in here is being in here for nothing. Miami's underworld may still be seedy, but it has outsourced much of its shadiness to nearby Third-World countries such as Panama. They were concerned that Tarzan and his arriviste colleagues in crime would merge with Cuban mobsters who already used brutal, bloody force to rule Miamis underworld and create a sort of supergroup of criminality. "That clean, business-friendly, postcard-Panama bullshit is just a faade," Galeota says. Prosecutors charged Galeota and Fainberg with not only drug dealing but also human trafficking. The heavy-set Italian even signed a release. "Running a club in that neighborhood, win or lose, you've got to fight.". Photo courtesy of Josh Weiss - Giant insects infest the prison. He called his cartel contacts and arranged to meet them in the pickup area of the Madrid train station. His father, Arnold, was a strait-laced sales manager but a distant and disapproving dad. 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. "When you're in La Joya for two years, you get used to that environment," Galeota says. As Fainberg and a wealthy Cuban-American named Juan Almeida sat in the Federal Detention Center downtown, and newspapers across the country splashed the sensational story of the drug submarine scheme, Galeota focused on staying out of court. The Coast Guard said each one of the kilos is worth $33,000. Galeota's imprisonment abroad marks the end of one of Miami's most outrageous eras, when Russian and Colombian cartels stocked strip clubs with cheap prostitutes and cheaper cocaine. When one inmate killed another, the dead man's gang on the outside murdered the inmate's entire family, Galeota says. Moreover, trafficking prostitutes and drugs and involvement in organized crime are some serious charges.". 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. Police repeatedly raided the club, yet Galeota escaped unscathed every time. But Porky's was just a Hialeah dive bar on the corner of SE 14th Street and Ninth Avenue, surrounded by cheap motels and buzzed by flights taking off from Miami International Airport. But when the house of cards tumbles, John . "But I've always paid for everything, either with stitches in my head, concussions, or jail time. A judge eventually dropped the human trafficking charge, but Galeota still rotted in his sordid cell alongside insects the size of small dogs. , updated Finally, on May 23, the gate on Galeota's cramped cell swung open, and he was free to go. But this was Hialeah.". This is a guy that the FBI went after for years but could never get him. The American says he's giving up the strip club and brothel businesses. And I'm not asking her to.". Once they spotted the plane, they changed course which is suspicious for us, said Boatswains Mate 1st Class, Joshua McElhaney with the Coast Guard. He and Fainberg were on their way to riches thanks to powerful friends and legalized prostitution.
His attorney has warned him that prosecutors will likely appeal, so he plans to stay in Panama until his case is resolved. See Photos. Days go by without water, and when it does arrive, it's turbid sludge from a nearby river. Kristy and his sons hid in a shabby, poorly protected office. The smugglers boat was destroyed because it was a hazard to navigation. 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. Were out there to cause an effect in the drug industry and I believe we made a little dent on it.. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. Now the locals want to get rid of guys like Galeota too, as his case has drawn national attention to corruption and human rights abuses. "Another night at Porky's, another shooting," he remembers now from his prison cell in Panama. And they were doing it on behalf of the notorious Cali drug cartel in Colombia, who planned to use the underwater vessel to smuggle cocaine undetected. She is cute and curvy with dark hair and a button nose. When he discovered he was about to be subpoenaed, he withdrew $2,500 from the bank and boarded a two-week Caribbean cruise. Anthony Jr. was taken to a juvenile detention center that wasn't much better. In hand-painted white lettering, it reads, "Dear visitors. But bloodshed would follow them to Miami. The young mobster needed to lay low, so the Pacciones sent him south to a strip club called the Porthole Pub in Pompano Beach. 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. Is this possible, to buy a military submarine - used one? And he said, What a question! Locked Up Abroad 151M subscribers Miami mobster Tony Galeota is a strip-club supremo. In the second interdiction, a Customs plane spotted another suspicious boat off the coast of Panama on August 28th. None of them ever appeared in the newspapers, but Hialeah police records confirm there were at least ten shootings at Porky's during Galeota's tenure. They are willing to assume the massive risk of getting caught and going to prison for decades, because if they make just one big score they're millionaires. source of local news and culture, Michael E. Miller Become a member to support the independent voice of South Florida They went Maserati shopping by helicopter so they could look at the cars from the air. Then my friend got back to me a couple days later and said there was just one question: Do you want a sub with missiles or without? , For all their camaraderie, though, the criminals opinions of one another were mixed. Episode 5: Spain /Sold My Soul Director Robin Dashwood Stars Alex Andreas Ricardo Burgos Tony Galeota But Tony had darker secrets. 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 Making the documentary, he says: I found the story so compelling and so riveting that I was just relentlessly magnetized to it. "Then they'd tell me: 'They are as good as dead.'". Tony and Kristy were shocked and out of a job. "We were like: 'We want to get the fuck out of here. We did outsmart the FBI, we did outsmart the DEA, we even did outsmart the court, Tarzan says in the film. ", Tony Galeota and fellow defendant Alon "Tarzan" Bar during better days in their Panama club The Doll House, After bribing half the guards at La Joya, Galeota was taken to an immigration holding center in Panama City where he and four co-defendants were kept for four more days. Sometimes we get a little excited when we find the amount of cocaine we found, said Castro. We've received your submission. Catherine says she slept with customers because she needed the money to support her family. Although he knows he could receive the death penalty, the money is too tempting to resist. Galeota is no angelic Andy Dufresne, the main character in Shawshank who serves two decades behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. Behind him, 12-foot-high fences topped with spools of barbed wire frame a muddy soccer field. "He was a smooth-talker. This story has been shared 121,048 times. Skip Ancestry main menu Main Menu They taught him the rules, the most important of which Galeota took to heart: "You can have your girlfriends on the side," he remembers hearing, "but never leave your wife.". ", "You hear that?" Now the locals want to get rid of guys like Galeota too, as his case has drawn national attention to corruption and human rights abuses. We have a lot of laughs about it now," he says. One can imagine they did plenty of drugs.. With dark hair and pale, wide-set eyes, teenage Tony resembled a stocky Frank Sinatra. "This case has had a big impact here," says Jos Otero, a reporter for Panamanian newspaper La Prensa. local news and culture, Michael E. Miller On Friday, May 17, Galeota got word that the judge had also dismissed the drug charge because of lack of evidence. Has a stint in Panamanian prison reformed Miami's most notorious strip club manager? In this real life Goodfellas tale, New York teen John Alite gets a job at his local Deli, a hangout for 'wise guys'. But Fainberg wasn't in town to catch up. "They murdered a guy in here a couple of days ago," Tony Galeota says. "I was always looking for their approval," he says, "but I never got that. He needed some help," he recalls. GALEOTA, Joseph A., Sr. Joseph A. Galeota Sr., 86, of Ashford CT, died on Wednesday (January 26, 2011) at Windham Hospital from congestive heart failure. In retrospect, when you tell the stories aloud, its like, Thats insane and you, Tiller, are an insane person for having done that. Its funny; I was just like, this is too good of a story to let go. Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. Eventually, he moved two dozen ladies to Panama City. Let me check.. "I thought I would kick up my heels together like 'Oh my God, I'm finally out,'" he says. "Luis pulled out a .38 and shot the guy in the chest. New Times wrote about Galeota's plight last year ("From Porky's to Hell," October 4, 2012), even visiting him in La Joya prison, a crumbling concrete complex in the jungle where inmates kill each other with impunity. People named Tony Galeta. There was a spate of murders, several police raids, and a federal drug-trafficking trial. 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. Sixteen months later, the two men have yet to appear in court. We asked them some questions and some of their information didnt quite add up, so we conducted a boarding.. Theyre nice guys [the cartel members], and I didnt ask what they needed the submarine for., If they woke up and were hungry, they would fly a private jet to Cancun for lunch, says Tiller Russell, director of Operation Odessa. Then theyd roll to Venezuela to check out a new casino. A 28-year-old English teacher named Tim Schrader agrees to smuggle eight kilos of heroin into the U.S. to solve his financial problems. He told them he could get them the submarine for $35million, but said hes need the money in installments; when they gave him the first $10million, he kept the money for himself and disappeared. 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. Miami's underworld may still be seedy, but it has outsourced much of its shadiness to nearby Third-World countries such as Panama. Find your friends on Facebook. The year before, his father helped him land a job as a wedding DJ. "Like me, he was a black sheep who could do nothing right.". "My wife could have left me. His father, Arnold, was a strait-laced sales manager but a distant and disapproving dad. In January 2017, Almeida got federally charged by the Drug Enforcement Administration with conspiracy to possess narcotics with intent to distribute. So I was literally stepping over dead bodies of the people who had been shanked and stuff over the course of the night.. He paid for her to secretly get an abortion. Half an hour later, Galeota was guarding the door when a car rolled up with the window down. But killings are common in Panama's worst prison, where the smell of raw sewage wafts over the yard, metal shackles hang from mouldy staircases, and overcrowded cells house nearly 3,500 of the Western Hemisphere's vilest murderers, rapists, and drug traffickers. He raises his eyebrows and looks upwards to the left to emphasize just how flabbergasted he was with Mishas counter question. He ogled the women standing on corners in their underwear and high heels. 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. He headed right to his beloved Miami, Florida. Yester, a highly regarded affiliate of multiple cocaine cartels, opened European markets for Colombian narco-terrorist Pablo Escobar and went on the run in 1990 after being charged with cocaine trafficking. When he left to open a bona fide brothel in Panama, Galeota thought the country's lax prostitution laws would make him rich. Michael Galeota, who starred on the Disney Channel's "The Jersey" died Sunday, according to Variety. "We went there and we couldn't believe what we saw," says Josh Weiss, a former DJ at Porky's and one of Galeota's closest friends. Panama became Galeota's personal paradise. Tony Galeota's shaved head fairly glows with nostalgia as he remembers the days when you might have strolled into his Hialeah bar in search of commercial sex, or maybe to get beaten up or swindled . Here, Galeota is just one of 500 prisoners crammed into a filthy cell block designed to hold 200 people. His school friends didn't believe him, so a few days later he sneaked out, stole his mom's minivan, and drove around the neighborhood loading up with other teens. Galeota already lived according to a gangster's code. Seidle was never charged with a crime. In January 1997, after he dropped his daughter off at school, Tarzan was arrested and hit with a 30-count federal indictment. Tarzan was released from the Panamanian prison in around 2016 and has since built a side career out of playing tough guys in gangster flicks shot in Russia, where he now lives. The Dolls House, Via Espaia Road, Panama City, Panam, "They murdered a guy in here a couple of days ago" Tony Galeota, Tony Galeota: From Running Porky's, Miami's Most Notorious Strip Joint, to Rotting in a Panamanian Jail. It could be worse. He called me in two days and he asked me, do we want the submarine with missiles or without missiles? says Tarzan. Facilitating it. Update information for Tony Galeota . By then, the club's criminal clientele and Fainberg's increasingly lavish lifestyle had raised eyebrows. ), Right about the time my last film was coming out, he emailed me and said, I did a jailbreak from Panama, traveled to Costa Rica, on to Cuba and then got repatriated to Moscow Im ready to do the movie, Russell says. "I don't care how strong you are; that's going to affect your marriage," she says. I never got a straight answer [about why he was in jail there], says Russell. Even though Yester may have suspected that the cartel was after him, he couldnt help but try to get his hands on the remaining $25 million. Johns paid $100 to rent a VIP room downstairs. ", McDonald has succeeded, however, in chipping away at the case, persuading a judge three weeks ago to drop the trafficking charge on a technicality. Fainberg allegedly told undercover cops he had sent coke to Russia in a shipment of frozen shrimp and had bought six $1 million Russian military helicopters for the South Americans. By now, she knows of his many infidelities, including that he lived and slept with some of the girls at the Doll House. Then she'd charge my friends $50 each," he says. When Kristy and their three sons finally arrived in June, the business became a family affair: His wife took over at Bongos, while Galeota concentrated on turning the club into a cash machine. 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When crews were launched to investigate, the suspected smugglers threw several packages into the water. Prostitution in Miami had become too risky, he decided, but overseas sex tourism was soaring. "I'm in survival mode now," Galeota says, adding that he agonizes over being imprisoned for what he believes are unjust charges. But in South Florida, he was once a strip club king. But instead of classical music, his specialty is sex. June 4, 2013 I just called a friend who had a friend and asked if he could get us a sub. "My wife could have left me. See Photos. Three weeks after the Doll House raid, Kristy was working the bar at Bongos when three teenagers walked into the restaurant. But Monday morning, when it came time to walk out of La Joya, there was no vehicle waiting. This looks great. . "She hasn't worked for 15 years. Furious and Busted Rick Cedar steals radios to support his family. Galeota examines a bruise from a prison fight in La Joya. But instead of classical music, his specialty is sex. "Now I'm living in hell.". "It is with tremendous heartfelt sadness to announce the passing of Michael James. By the time they returned to Long Island later that night, a pimp was born. Instead, they eat rice for lunch and dinner, drink dirty river water, and use a hole in the ground for a toilet. Kristy caught Tony cheating several times, she says. Thanks to a successful appeal, Almeida served only 18 months for his part in the sub caper. Ludwig Fainberg a Russian-speaking Ukrainian nicknamed "Tarzan" for his flowing locks had opened it a few months earlier but ran it like a private club for Eastern Europeans. Tony Galletta. A man deeply embedded with Escobar's Medelln cartel, Tony had a notorious reputation as "a really bad guy"he was once caught with 41 passports, and featured on his own 1999 episode of America's. Anywhere other than La Joya, this news would be shocking. Its about 2,800 kilos, about a ton and a half of contraband. "Whenever there is an American businessman involved in crime here in Panama, it becomes an important case. The domestic bliss lasted only a couple of weeks. See Photos. "These guys were into just about everything," Assistant U.S. Attorney Diana Fernandez said at the time. But it bored him. They finally fled the country this past July, leaving Tony alone. Controlling it. Twice, American authorities had investigated Galeota. Even then, however, he couldn't sleep. Tony Galeota has a wife named Kristy Galeota, with whom he lives. And multiple sources close to Fainberg say he was pressured to rat out Seidle but refused.