“The Life We Chose, William ‘Big Billy’ D’Elia and The Last Secrets of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Family” tells the story of a little-known Pennsylvania based Mob powerhouse and his behind the scenes life in organized crime.
The former president has gotten the brush off from a former reputed power in the Mafia: Billy D’Elia.
In the new biography about him, D’Elia says he did business with former President Trump when he owned Atlantic City casinos in the 1980’s, and that Trump shaved off $1 million from one real estate deal… by flipping a coin.
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The Feds say D’Elia, known as “Big Billy,” ran the Buffalino Crime Family, based in Pennsylvania, for decades. He honed his profession at the side of the family’s namesake, the legendary Russel Buffalino, who Robert F. Kennedy called “one of the most ruthless and powerful leaders of the Mafia in the United States.”
The revelations about Trump are in the new book about D’Elia, “The Life We Chose, William ‘Big Billy’ D’Elia and the Last Secrets of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Family,” by veteran journalist Matt Birkbeck. Birkbeck covered D’Elia and the Buffalino Crime Family for decades in northeast Pennsylvania, and is the author the biography “The Quiet Don,” about the crime family’s namesake, Russell Buffalino.
Donald Trump portrait on 5th Avenue outside of Trump Tower. NYC 1987 (Getty Images)
“Trump, when he did deals, he didn’t want his lawyers doing it. He didn’t want anyone else doing it, he did it himself, and he did it with gangsters,” says Birkbeck.
“Billy did business with a lot of people, including Donald Trump,” he says. “Trump knew exactly who he was, Trump knew exactly what he was doing and exactly what they were negotiating about.”
D’Elia says he attended a meeting with Trump and the Philadelphia based real estate brothers Barry and Ken Shapiro, who owned the property, and had agreed to buy the land for $8 million, that is until Trump showed up and refused to pay the amount promised.
“Trump said he couldn’t give him the eight million, that he only had seven,” says D’Elia. “So now what do you do, wait?”
“We’re at this meeting with Trump (says D’Elia) and Barry said, ‘Let’s flip a coin for the other million.’ Trump said fine, so they flipped a coin and Trump won.”
“We gave him a 15-year mortgage and he paid it off.”
The phone card and time share proposals never came to fruition.
Trump has never been charged with any criminal wrongdoing involving his casino dealings and he passed the legal requirements to own and operate Atlantic City casinos, which are regulated by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission and its Division of Gaming Enforcement.
In 2017 a Wall Street investment banker, Ken Moelis, told Business Insider that in the middle of a heated negotiation, Trump “looks at me and he goes ‘-we’re a million dollars apart -and he said ‘I tell you what, I’ll flip you for it.’ And he reached into his pocket and pulls out a coin”
Moelis says he examined the coin to make sure that it was legitimate, and when he flipped, “it flew across the table toward Trump, which he instantly knew was a mistake…but before he could catch a glimpse, Trump picked it up and said, ‘Heads. you lose.’”
Moelis is now a billionaire investment banker, who has been described as the businessman who “launched Trump’s casinos on the stock exchange” and has had a long association with the former president.
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D’Elia sat for an exclusive interview for Fox Nation’s series about Jimmy Hoffa, “Riddle: The Search for James R. Hoffa.” He is featured in the latest episode, number 6, “The Last Suspect,” about the remaining FBI suspect in Hoffa’s disappearance, Gabe Briguglio.
