Read this book a few times years ago. Took it on a flight recently. Towards the beginning he talks about the big RICO bust saying there was a $500,000 contract on him prior to the trial beginning. He might have said it was from Castellano but I can't remember. Also said they were fine with hitting his family.

Do you guys believe this?

My opinion is that there might have been a contract right after the infiltration was revealed. It was done in the heat of a moment and i would'nt completely exclude the possibility that some bosses got together and decided they should do something about it as it was a massive embarassement. I don't believe there was any money as Mob contracts never involved money. Nobody gets paid for killing someone in the mob (you get made, you get connections or easier access to a business but not cash unless it's a murder for hire situation).

I don't remember the source but i have read somewhere in a Gotti Book that, at some point, Castellano pushed to remove the contract. Gotti was supposedly mad about it since he was close to Sonny Black and Joey Massino. I don't think it's highly credible but i would say that's the only mention of a contract on Pistone that i know of.

I don't believe it, I think they were more concerned with making each other pay for it. I don't like Pistone, he's not a hero in my eyes. But I have to admit he had balls. The mob today is a joke, so I wouldn't consider any undercover agent as being brave by infiltrating an LCN family, but back in the 1970s and 80s? It was still something serious.

Pistone and his people put that out for publicity.

. I think you make good points. It’s not out of the realm of possibility. Like you said maybe a heat if the moment kind of thing. However it would bring way too much heat if they were seriously going to follow through with it

I think that $500K "open contract" was always full on bullshit. For one, who would pay and two, if they ever announced there was a contact on a FED and someone actually killed him, the FEDS would have used every resource they had to squash whoever was left. And those bosses knew it. Also whoever would have killed Pistone would have been found in the trunk of his car when he went to collect that $500K, good luck with that.

I remember Pistone was on Letterman wearing his trademark sunglasses and they were all pretending he was looking around for some wiseguy to jump out and take a shot at him doing the interview....on the promo for the episode there was some stunt they did where they dropped the 'ole sandbag from the rafters trick like an attempted hit.....he was on Letterman promoting the Donnie Brasco tv show "Falcone" where Joe himself played a bartender their social club and helped kill people, he garrotes some guy in the pilot. I guess the "open contract" was called off during filming. I have a VHS tape around here somewhere with the first couple episodes. Titus Weilver plays Sonny Black. He was a convincing mob guy. Surprising he never played another role like that in a more successful part. Or maybe he has.

Complete Bullshit. FBI Agents O'Brien and Kurins regurgitated that shit in their book Boss of Bosses that was later made into a TV movie. Link...https://youtu.be/Ty4sjG_i5Y0

The only person talking about whacking Donnie after it was revealed he was an agent was Lefty Ruggiero.

While there's no way Joe Pistone could ever safely walk down Mulberry Street, I hardly believe that the mob was seriously, actively trying to kill a federal agent much less his family. Not the mafia of that era, certainly.

I never believed it, myself. I'm sure there's some kernel of truth somewhere - perhaps a wiretap where some Bonanno hothead or another said "we should kill that guy!" or some capo who flippantly said they'd pay half a million bucks to see him dead, or something to such effect that it could be alluded to as a "contract" on Pistone's life. But I doubt big Joey sat his captains down and said "get on this". And given the era I'd be almost equally certain that at the commission level, Chin, Big Paul and Ducks would have been unanimous in saying "no revenge, let this go and end it here."

No evidence of the supposed "contract" was ever really presented, to my knowledge. And in all the years that have followed Joe has taken advantage of every bit of publicity he can get which tells me he's not above going out there and saying whatever he has to say to get attention.

So I call BS.

He actually was on Mulberry Street a few times many years ago. I red the story, it was while he was the consultant on a tv show. He was without any disguise, right in the open. No one touched him, what is funny is that most people if not all residents did not know who he was. It was written about 10 years after he infiltrated the mob.

Yeah Jimmy Calandra is driving a delivery truck down Mulberry these days but a Former FBI agent who infiltrated the Bonanno Family after their Boss flipped Can't? Get lost moron

Real Donnie Brasco, FBI agent Joe Pistone, still in hiding at age 81: "But I don't constantly worry about it” https://gangstersinc.org/blog/real-donnie-brasco-fbi-agent-joe-pistone-still-in-hiding-at-age-8

He has never been in hiding. They never were going to kill him, and at 81 they are definitely not going to. He's hiding from who? He never turns down interviews either, although he does often wear that silly fake beard.

Haha, he's not in hiding. Big Joey lookin' for him? The ghost of Lefty?

I don't know why he's always wearing those shades, I don't think I've ever seen him without them. Like dude, nobody gives a fuck about you lol

There has to be a few stories that Pistone kept quiet, either for FBI secrecy or for other reasons. If he told them now, truthfully, they may as interesting or more interesting than his previous stories.

Yes. And: The Commission doesn't have a standing army and a treasury to punish lawmen who put a hurting on a Mob family. And, why would any boss contribute a dime to avenge a problem the Bonannos brought on themselves due to their own stupidity. The Bonannos were pariahs at that time, didn't even have a seat on the Commission.