The name Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano was once of the most feared names on the planet. After rising to the position of underboss in the Mafia's Gambino crime family, he found himself facing a lengthy jail sentence after a police crackdown. Despite confessing to 19 killings, Sammy, whose real name is Salvatore Gravano, took a plea deal in which he testified against Mafia boss John Gotti and received a smaller five-year sentence.
Following his release from prison in 1994, he and his family – his now ex-wife, Debra, and their two kids, Karen and Gerard – relocated to start a new life under witness protection. However, the Brooklyn-born gangster, now 79, soon ditched his new alias and returned to his former name.
Despite starting a fresh life, Sammy and his family soon found themselves embroiled in a new saga at the epicentre of the ecstasy drug trade in Arizona. It left Sammy facing a brand new rival, English stockbroker Shaun Attwood. The face-offs that followed landed Sammy with another sentence of 20 years behind bars.
Now, as his family tell their side of the story for the first time in an explosive new Warner Bros. and Max documentary, Sammy has further opened up to the Mirror about the dramatic events. Speaking ahead of the release of Sons of Ecstasy, Sammy told us: "People will understand it [the story] a lot better after watching. [The documentary] explains how Gerard got into it [the drugs business]. It was a trial of errors. One after another. We were doing other things, and more or less, we were duped into it, and I really had no interest in it. [Viewers] will see the entire story and how the original story that came out with the press and the people involved was exaggerated tremendously.".
