Mr. Previte testified that he started dealing with the Bruno mob about three and a half decades ago when he was involved with illegal gambling while an officer with the Philadelphia Police Department. He related that, even then, “I kicked the money up; I  paid for the sergeants and lieutenants, things like that. You’re never an independent entrepreneur.”

After a dozen years as a police officer, Mr. Previte worked as a security officer from 1981 to 1985 for the Tropicana Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. He testified, “They must have not [done] a very good background check on me, because … I was a bum. … It was like payday when I got to the casino.” Mr. Previte testified that while working for the casino, he took advantage of opportunities there to earn money through bookmaking, theft and other crimes. He said that when members of organized crime came around, “I would pay them off then, because they knew I was a big operator there.” Meanwhile, in Hammonton and elsewhere in Atlantic County, he ran a large bookmaking operation. He added, “I basically had everything tied up in that area. If you wanted to do something, you had to come through me at one time there.”

Mr. Previte described himself as “an extremely good earner” within the underworld, with gambling as his “main source of income.” Yet, true to his self- description as a “general practitioner of crime,” he used the proceeds of gambling to “finance other avenues of illegal activity.” He testified, “I thought about nothing but making money from the minute I got up until the minute I went to bed.”

Recalling that he was most satisfied when not required to share the proceeds of his criminal activities with others, Mr. Previte testified that this independence ended when Bruno family operatives “approached me and asked me to come with them.” After that, he was obliged to split his criminal earnings with the Bruno organization. He added, “[Y]ou can only be independent if you’re a small entrepreneur. But when you become  big and you start making more money and you have a large book, you’re going to come under their auspices and … they’re going to find out about you.”

Eventually, John Stanfa, who served as boss at the time, called upon Mr. Previte to serve as a so-called “made member” of the group. Mr. Previte described the circumstances:
… [W]e were in the midst of a, I guess you would call it a gang war at the time with other factions of organized crime, and there was a lot of murder going on, shootings, beatings. And [Stanfa] needed me to help him do some heavy-duty work. And at a restaurant one day, he made me a member of his organization, hoping that I would carry out murders, beatings and whatever for him. … [I]t was a formal/informal ceremony. We never got around to making – he told me that he was carrying me as a made guy, and I was in his inner circle. I attended all of the meetings with made people. But by the time our ceremony was set up, he had already left [for prison].

Mr. Previte estimated that he made “millions of dollars” for the Bruno organization. He testified to living “high on the hog” with the portion remaining to him, buying big houses and big cars and gambling in casinos. He noted, “[Y]ou think it’s never going to end. You’re foolish. Easy come, easy go … .” Referring to “what happens to most guys in that business,” Mr. Previte concluded, “You’re broke, in jail or dead.” Relating that one could be happy in that life from time to time, he bemoaned that it was not a normal life or “a life that I would wish for anyone.” He added, “I wouldn’t want my kids to do it, believe me.” Instead of investing in a 401(k), he said he “played” the number 401 “every day.”

Testifying that while he was with the organization under Stanfa “numerous” murder plots were discussed, Mr. Previte, who had by then become an informant for the  FBI, related that “the information was going back and forth between the organization, myself and the FBI.” He had become a New Jersey State Police informant as early as 1985, and served as a FBI informant from 1992 to 1997. Government officials credited Mr. Previte with supplying information that impeded several murder attempts in which Mr. Stanfa’s rival, Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino, and some of Merlino’s top lieutenants were targeted. Later, while working for Stanfa’s successors, Ralph Natale and Joseph Merlino, Mr. Previte recorded more than 350 conversations among mobsters. Prosecutors used the tapes of many of those conversations in subsequent trials of mob defendants.

When Stanfa went to prison, the mob war with Merlino ended. Mr. Previte testified, “I was able to sleep in bed again. During the war I had to put a dummy in the bed and was sleeping on the floor … .” For a short period he was able to keep more of the proceeds of his bookmaking operation and other criminal activities. He testified that before long, “I had to go meet with Ralph Natale, and he came into power.”

Upon his release from prison, Natale took over as boss. Recognizing Mr. Previte’s earning capability, Natale summoned him. Mr. Previte agreed that he went to his meeting with Natale with some trepidation because he thought his time “on the other side” with Stanfa would lead to his getting “whacked at that meeting.” He attributed his survival to the fact that he “had full pockets.” His earning capacity also overcame any hard feelings in his relationship with Joseph Merlino. Mr. Previte testified that when Merlino became boss after Natale went back to jail, “I became a member of [Merlino’s] organization.” He explained that he felt no concern about meeting with the newly installed Merlino because “I knew … he wanted [an earner].”

 Regarding organized crime’s longevity, Mr. Previte opined:
“[A]s long as you have illegal gambling and that sort of thing, you’re going to have the mob, because … there’s big money in bookmaking and gambling, and it’s not going anywhere. I mean real big money. And that, I think, is the backbone of organized crime, as long as you have that. … There’s volume, heavy volume. I mean it makes millionaires out of people. … [A]s long as there’s money to be made, somebody is going to snatch it up. … As long as there [are] people out there gambling, people buying drugs, people borrowing money, there’s always going to be someone to service them … . … When people stop gambling, when people stop buying drugs or people stop going to houses of prostitution, when people stop borrowing money, then the gangsters will go away. I don’t think it’s the gangsters as much as the people. You wouldn’t believe how many people facilitate it ….”

Mr. Previte described the lure of organized crime for people leading otherwise respectable lives:
… [T]here [are] a lot of people that don’t need organized crime. They have plenty of money and have good businesses, but there’s a certain aura about organized crime, that they want to be near you and involved with you. You usually charge them a fee for that. … If they’re going to be around you, it’s going to cost them something … . Me, personally, I always thought it was ridiculous for someone to want to do that that didn’t need it. … To open themselves up to that. And there’s a lot of people that are like that, and it’s ridiculous.

Mr. Previte agreed that the media unrealistically glamorizes organized crime. He described the contradiction between the reality of organized crime and its image: When I was growing up, I used to see the guys with the Cadillacs and the big hats, and that’s what I wanted to be. But … there’s … really no loyalty there like  in the movies. … I mean if you fall down and bump your head, by the time you get up, somebody went in your pocket. … There really is no loyalty there … . It’s pitting one person against another. It’s dog eat dog. … You can make it glamorous, but it's not really. …

The last time I was in Trenton, that’s probably about 10 years ago, I got subpoenaed along with Mr. Stanfa and a few other cronies to [a state grand jury]. And I didn’t really know it, but when I got there, there [were] TV cameras all over the place, and it was all over the news that night. And up to that time, everyone knew basically what I was. But after putting it on TV, I think my income tripled. You know, people see you on TV, and now, oh, my. … Now, you were a stand-up guy. I guess you could say that ... . Exactly, [one who went with the boss to meet the authorities]. … So it's true, it's the media that does it. They do. They help it. … [T]hey helped me earn more.

Mr. Previte related the negative effects of his organized crime life on his family:
Well, it’s taken a heavy toll on the members of my immediate family for what I’ve put them through. As today, there will probably be something in the newspaper about it, and it will fester an angry wound again. I mean, it’s a terrible thing. I wish I never got involved with it. I wish I took a different road in life. Of course, that’s hindsight now, but I would advise anybody not to take the route I did. It’s a terrible way of life. It destroys your family. It causes divorce. It causes your kids pain and anguish. It's taken a terrible toll upon my family. Me, personally, I don’t mean to be crass, but I don’t care, I can take it, but it was hard on them, real hard. …

I’d rather have your job. … When you leave here and go home at night, you have dinner, relax and put your head down and talk to your wife, if you have a wife, or your children, if you have children, and you relax and you get up the next day. You're never at ease with what I did most of my life. You wait for the door to come down in the middle of the night. You wait for a bullet to come through the window. You walk out and hit the button to open your car, you wait  to get shot. It’s a terrible way of life. … It’s the life I chose, but it's a terrible way of life. As I said, I’d rather be you. …

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