Ex-mobster Sammy the Bull accused of sexually assaulting employee

For the past several years, former mob enforcer-turned-Arizona celebrity Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano has been trying to get a TV show made about his life. In the process, he’s made life hell for several female employees who worked for him, according to a lawsuit filed last week in federal court.

The lawsuit was filed by 36-year-old Anna Castaneda, a Valley resident who worked as a producer and administrative assistant to Gravano for much of the past three years. She was among fewer than 10 employees of Gravano’s small Chandler production company, Debra’s Way, which he runs along with his ex-wife and current business partner, Debra Gravano.

In her lawsuit against the 80-year-old Gravano, Castaneda claims that he repeatedly behaved inappropriately, to the point of creating a hostile work environment for her and other employees, many of them women. Her complaint alleges that Gravano made racially derogatory comments toward her, stuck his tongue down her throat without her consent on multiple occasions and consistently made sexually explicit comments about sex and his penis, even once exclaiming to Castaneda, “Look how hard my dick is!”

He also allegedly often showed employees nude photos of women on his phone during working hours and had violent outbursts toward female employees, some of whom quit on the spot. Additionally, he allegedly once required Castaneda to collect a sample of his feces from a toilet for a medical test. She says he also kept a gun in his office — which she says he is prohibited from possessing as a convicted felon — and that Gravano once pointed at someone’s head in front of another employee.

Castaneda spoke at length to Phoenix New Times about her experience working for Gravano and provided screenshots of text messages that she said supported her allegations. 

“I have thousands of text messages of just, ‘He did this today and he said this today and I don’t want to be alone with him in the office,’” she said.

Castaneda also provided incident reports from the Phoenix Police Department, to whom she complained about Gravano’s behavior. It’s not clear to what extent, if any, Phoenix police investigated those complaints.

Neither Gravano nor his attorney responded to requests for comment from New Times. New Times also reached out to six former employees of Gravano’s but did not hear back from them.

“I thought that I could help him and I tried to do everything I could,” Castaneda said of working for Gravano. “It’s a curse. He’s cursed. He definitely destroys and ruins everything around him.”

From mobster to celebrity

Gravano has been an infamous figure for decades. 

He rose to fame in the early 1990s, when he became the highest-ranking member of the Sicilian mafia to flip and become a government witness. In 1991, he testified for the federal government in the RICO and murder trial of Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, who’d become known as the Teflon Don for having beaten multiple criminal prosecutions. Gravano was Gotti’s second-in-command, or underboss, and was also facing federal charges.

In 1989, Gravano turned state’s witness after he heard Gotti making disparaging remarks about him on wiretaps played during a court hearing. According to “Underboss,” a 1997 biography of Gravano by Peter Mass, Gotti was heard insisting to another mobster that he sanctioned hits against several mob members at Gravano’s strong direction. The tapes portrayed Gotti as a “long-suffering boss saddled with a mad-dog killer who hounded him to obtain authorizations for hits until he finally threw up his hands and bowed to Sammy’s wishes,” according to the book.

As a government witness, Gravano confessed to participating, in “one way or another,” in 18 or 19 murders, including many he’d not previously been suspected of. After Gravano’s testimony, a jury found Gotti guilty of all racketeering and murder counts against him. Gotti was sentenced to life and died in prison in 2002. 

In 1994, Gravano was sentenced to just five years for his role in the mafia operation, thanks in large part to his help prosecuting dozens of key mafia figures, bribed jurors, corrupt cops and trade union officials. Gravano entered witness protection upon his release, even going so far as to change his appearance with plastic surgery, which was arranged by the U.S. Marshals Service. Eight months later, he left witness protection to move to Arizona.

In the Valley, he led a more public life. He also dealt ecstasy. In 2000, Gravano was busted, along with his son Gerard, for running a multimillion-dollar drug ring from his Phoenix-area home. He pleaded guilty in 2001 and wound up serving 17 years in prison. Gravano and Gerard, who is a manager at Debra’s Way, were recently the subject of a 2025 HBO Max documentary about the ecstasy ring. Talos Films produced the film, according to the Internet Movie Database. Gravano’s production company does not appear to have been involved.

That production company, which was founded in 2018, has largely been Gravano’s focus since he got out of prison. Gravano has leveraged it to rebrand himself as something of a mafia influencer, podcaster and content creator.

The company produces Gravano’s podcast, “Our Thing” — a reference to Cosa Nostra, the Italian term for the five families of New York’s Sicilian mafia. On the show, Gravano sits in a big leather chair in dim lighting and tells mob stories directly to the camera. The show’s 120-plus episodes often feature high-profile gangsters. The company also has a digital, members-only content platform called OurThing.TV, which offers more interviews — including a tease of an upcoming interview with infamous Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — as well as short films and documentaries.

Castaneda began working for Gravano in 2022. She told New Times she’d had a previous friendship with someone in Gravano’s orbit and also had a family member who’d been caught up in Gravano’s ecstasy ring. She’d also worked in TV production — she’d played a small part in the 2020 Spanish-language Netflix film “Mutiny of the Worker Bees” and is listed on IMDb as a second-unit director on another Spanish-language production — and had studied at the American Music and Dramatic Academy in Los Angeles before switching tracks to study psychology at Arizona State University.

Castaneda was still studying at ASU when Gerald Gravano called to ask her to come work for his father’s production company. Castaneda told New Times that Gerard told her that his father was “making all these mistakes in the business” and he “just really needs help.” Aside from helping produce Gravano’s podcast, most of Castaneda’s work with the company focused on trying to get a scripted TV drama about Gravano’s life off the ground.

Taking the job, she now realizes, was “a big mistake.”

‘Walking on eggshells’

Gravano’s wished-for TV show is more than just a flight of fancy. Castaneda’s complaint says she secured meetings for Gravano with “major studios, executive producers, show creators, and writers,” and several notable names have been attached to the project over the years.

In 2023, Kapital Entertainment signed on to create a scripted show about Gravano’s life. Nick Pileggi, who co-wrote “Goodfellas” and “Casino” along with Martin Scorsese, was attached to the production in 2024. Later that year, “Boardwalk Empire” creator Terence Winter joined as showrunner and “Training Day” director Antoine Fuqua agreed to direct. FX was also going to co-produce the series.

But while there was progress on producing the show, Gravano’s alleged treatment of Castaneda grew more and more brazen. She kept going, she said, for the promise of an executive producer credit and finishing the project.

“You’re walking on eggshells, but you’re trying to get those big deals done,” she told New Times. “If you could just get a big deal over the line, you’re always told, like, ‘Everything’s going to be different, things are going to get better.’”

Castaneda said her first truly alarming interaction with Gravano came in September 2023. According to her lawsuit, Castaneda and Gravano had returned to the office after a dinner meeting with an executive producer when Gravano stood over her and “forcibly kissed her and thrust his tongue into her mouth without consent.” The lawsuit says she “recoiled and pushed Mr. Gravano away.”

Six months later, Gravano allegedly did it again. After a birthday dinner for Gravano, Castaneda drove him home, where Gravano pulled her into his home office, saying he needed to discuss “business matters.” While she sat in a chair in his office, Gravano again forcibly kissed her, the lawsuit says.

“It was so disgusting and violating,” Castaneda told New Times. “He waited until I was more vulnerable and alone and it was in the office. I pushed him away while I leaned back at the same time.”

Between those two alleged assaults, Castaneda says, Gravano twice pressured her into sharing a hotel room with him during work trips to Los Angeles, insisting it would save money despite Castaneda offering to pay for her own room. On a December 2023 trip, she allegedly had to sleep in the same bed as Gravano, though her complaint says she slept above the covers. That night, apparently thinking she was asleep, Gravano allegedly began to rub Castaneda’s arm while lying in bed, which her lawsuit says made her “extremely uncomfortable.” She turned away and pretended to be asleep.

On another trip two months later, Gravano insisted that they share a room, this time with separate beds. This time, the lawsuit says, Gravano sat on Castaneda’s bed and offered her a massage, which Castaneda declined. Despite her objections, Gravano began massaging her head, shoulders and neck. Castaneda was “extremely upset and uncomfortable during this interaction,” according to the lawsuit.

After Gravano left the room, she told New Times, “I literally got up and vomited.”

Castaneda’s lawsuit claims that Gravano acted similarly toward other women in the office. He allegedly showed nude photos of women to employees and at least once “fondl(ed) his penis over his clothing and exclaim(ed) to Ms. Castaneda and another female staff member, ‘Look how hard my dick is!’”

“He always grabs himself,” Castaneda told New Times. “He always talks about how hard he is, how erect he is. He’s on testosterone. He’s got these Viagra pills. This is pervasive. It’s daily and constant.”

The lawsuit also claims that Gravano would explode in anger at women staffers who “rejected his sexual advances or objected to his sexually explicit comments.” In 2022, the suit claims, “numerous employees of Debra’s Way resigned due to the hostile work environment perpetuated by Salvatore Gravano.” Castaneda recalled one coworker quitting on the spot around that time.

“He just exploded with rage at her and leaped from behind his desk at her. He was pounding his chest, like screaming at this 22-year-old girl,” Castaneda told New Times. “She just turned on the same heel and walked out that front door.”

While Gravano dealt with bowel issues in April 2024, according to the lawsuit, he required Castaneda “to assist him with a stool test by scooping his feces and transferring it into test tubes.” That same month, Castaneda sent Gravano an email “regarding his treatment of her,” including what she said was his misclassification of her as an independent contractor.

Not long after, the lawsuit says, the production company cut her pay.

‘I knew he had a gun’

After she complained in an email to Gravano about her treatment, Castaneda claims, his behavior got more unpredictable and violent.

While in the car with Gravano during a June 2024 trip to Los Angeles, the suit claims, Gravano “became enraged over a Hollywood director who was not returning Mr. Gravano’s emails about the scripted show project.” The suit says Gravano “began making racist slurs and violent remarks about this director, who happened to be African American.” The suit does not name the director, but Castaneda told New Times that the comments were directed at Fuqua. New Times reached out to Fuqua’s representatives but has not received a response.

Last August, Castaneda says, she witnessed Gravano attempt to strangle his son, Gerard. Her complaint says she was also aware of — but didn’t necessarily witness — other violent outbursts from Gravano, including an instance of him pointing a gun at someone in the Debra’s Way offices. Castaneda also witnessed Gravano display the gun around the office, she told New Times.

About a year ago, Castaneda told Gravano that she needed to temporarily work from home due to a “medical crisis” involving her young adult son. She claims that Debra’s Way didn’t pay her after that, despite the fact that she “continued to successfully perform all required job duties.” 

The lawsuit says Gravano became “increasingly agitated and unstable” due to her absence. He began sending Castaneda expletive-filled text messages and angry phone calls. (These do not appear to be among the many text messages Castaneda shared with New Times.) Then Gravano would switch to “sexually propositioning her and asking her to meet him for a candlelit dinner and let him ‘fuck’ her,” according to the complaint.

A little more than a week after Castaneda began working from home, Gravano fired her over text and said he’d “crush” her if she came forward with allegations against him, according to the lawsuit. Castaneda shared a screenshot of that text with New Times.

Soon after, per the complaint, Gravano and his son began defaming Castaneda around the office, telling at least three employees that Castaneda was a “hooker” who “extorts men for money.” The lawsuit claims that at least one employee repeated those comments to someone in the entertainment industry. In June 2024, the lawsuit says, Gravano also told another employee that he wanted to “shoot” Castaneda. A month later, he allegedly told an employee that “he became sexually aroused by the idea of strangling Ms. Castaneda to death.”

Though Castaneda’s complaint said Gravano still tried to lure her back into his employ, the former mobster allegedly continued to make threatening comments about her. In September, she claims, Gravano approached one of her family members and stated that he was surprised she was “coming after” him. He added that “he thought she would be more concerned about the safety of herself and her son, implying that Ms. Castaneda and her son could be in danger if she pursues legal action against him,” the lawsuit says.

“I was terrified because I knew he had a gun,” Castaneda told New Times. She added: “He’s definitely capable of that.”

In August, before Gravano’s alleged threatening comment to one of her relatives, Castaneda reported the forced kisses, death threats and firearm possession to the Phoenix Police Department. Around the same time, another woman who’d worked for Debra’s Way Productions reported Gravano to Phoenix police for a “pattern of sexual harassment against her,” according to an incident report that Castaneda shared with New Times. The employee accused Gravano and his son of pressuring her to have sex with them and said Gravano also exposed himself to her and tried to kiss her.

New Times contacted the second employee about her allegations, but she declined to discuss them for this story. However, text messages shared by Castaneda with New Times show them discussing their experiences with Gravano in detail.

“Hey, your sister said you wanted to text or chat about what happened at Sammy’s…” says one July 2025 text from Castaneda to the other woman. “Are you okay?”

It’s not clear how police handled those complaints. New Times requested the full reports from the department in November but has yet to receive them. Castaneda says police declined to recommend criminal charges against Gravano four months after she filed her report. Phoenix police have not responded to an inquiry about the investigation.

In April of last year, Castaneda sent a demand letter to Gravano and Debra’s Way. In the letter, which she provided to New Times, she demanded more than $1,000 in back pay, to be transferred to the employ of Kapital Entertainment and to be ensured of her $5,000-per-episode fee for the scripted series. She later sent a similar letter to Kapital Entertainment.

The letters produced no resolution. So Castaneda sued. She’s claiming assault, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and the violation of several state and federal labor laws. She’s seeking several forms of damages, including more than $29,000 in unpaid overtime.

Meanwhile, the show about Gravano’s life appears to have stalled. In an email to New Times, Kapital Entertainment CEO Aaron Kaplan said FX passed on the project last year after receiving the script. “It is no longer an active television project,” he wrote. However, Scott Greenberg, the manager for Fuqua and Winter, told New Times earlier this month that the series is still “in development.”