“Did I live in fear? No. Was I cautious? Absolutely… I never sold my former associates short — I knew they were very capable.”
In a recent phone interview, former “made man” and capo for New York’s Columbo crime family Michael Franzese describes what it was like leaving the mafia without witness protection.
He also discusses the mafia story of his late father, Sonny Franzese, and teases some of what he’ll share about Cleveland’s historic mob ties ahead of his appearance June 24 at the Lorain Palace Theater for a presentation of “Michael Franzese’s A Mob Story.”
“There’s a lot of treachery in that life,” Franzese says, referring to the mafia. “But it comes with the territory, so you understand that going in.”
Franzese explains that when he left, it wasn’t because he was angry, wanted to hurt anyone or to get even.
“I just really wanted out of the life,” he says.
Of course, closing the curtains wasn’t going to be easy, Franzese describing the experience as a dance.
“I tried to make the government understand I was really out of the life because initially they didn’t believe me,” he says.
Next, he says, came the tricky task of convincing “people on the street” he wouldn’t harm anyone.
More than anything, Franzese says, he wanted his father to understand his intentions, especially after his name appeared on witness lists without Franzese himself knowing.
“I didn’t wanna betray my father. I didn’t want him to think that low of me, that I would become a witness and hurt people.
“I mean, they put my name on witness lists that were coming up on trials in New York, but I never showed up,” he continues. “It never happened. People thought I was gonna be a witness even though I kept sending messages to my dad. I said, ‘Don’t believe it. I’m not coming.’”
himseBack in the day, Michael Franzese’s A Mob Story’ was a “capo” — a captain — for New York’s Columbo crime family. (Courtesy of Michael Franzese)Sonny, who served the Colombo crime family as an underboss and ran in hugely famous social circles — Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, etc. — kept silent throughout the decades he spent in prison.
In fact, when he was sentenced to 50 years, he quipped, “I’ll bet I do every one.”
“You could have put hot coals on his body and he wouldn’t have become a witness,” Franzese says of his father. “It was just his principle.”
“So, it was a pretty rough time going through that, walking that line,” Franzese continues about his exit from the mafia. “And yeah, they offered me the (witness-protection) program. I said, ‘Look, I’m not interested. I’m not gonna live that way. I’m not gonna cut off everybody that I care about. It’s not gonna happen.’”
Franzese explains it was never his intention to follow in his father’s footsteps in the first place.
In fact, he enrolled in a pre-med program at Hofstra University but left after his father’s extensive sentence came in 1967.
“When he drew a 50-year prison sentence and it seemed like that would have been a death sentence for him, I knew I had to do what I had to do,” he says. “Number one, to help my family ‘cause I was the oldest, and number two, to help him get out of prison. So that was the reason I made that move.”
With plans for med school behind him, Franzese was “made” at age 24 and quickly broke records in the world of organized crime.
It’s estimated Franzese made more than 1 billion dollars for the Columbo family, earning him the title as the youngest person on Fortune magazine’s ‘Fifty Most Wealthy and Powerful Mafia Bosses’ list — number 18, just five spaces behind John Gotti.
At the top of the 1980s, Franzese implemented a plan to defraud the federal government out of gasoline taxes. By 1986, he had been sentenced to 10 years in prison on conspiracy charges.
When released in 1994, Franzese found faith, and he began speaking at outreach ministries as a born-again Christian. He has penned several books about the mafia and his experiences.
Franzese’s YouTube channel — which is only three years old but has more than 1 million subscribers — also offers a plethora of mafia history, including his own.
His weekly sit-down videos have garnered lots of attention, but it wasn’t something he was initially interested in doing.
“I was so reluctant to do YouTube,” Franzese says. “It happened during the pandemic, when I had probably 40-plus speaking engagements get postponed or canceled and my team turned to me and said, ‘What are you gonna do?’
With in-person speaking events back in action, Franzese visits cities with significant mafia histories, including Cleveland.
“I’ll get into the Cleveland mob and family and what influences they had,” Franzese says about his visit to Lorain. “I’ll talk about my life. I’ll answer questions about the life in general.
“Sometimes we’ll even go into some movies because people are curious which is the (most) real one,” he continues. “So, yeah, it’s kind of a live version (of the YouTube channel) but a little more extensive.”
‘Michael Franzese’s A Mob Story’
When: 7 p.m. June. 24.
Where: Lorain Palace Theater, 617 Broadway.
Tickets: $40 to $130, with VIP packages available.
Info: lorainpalace.org or 440-245-2323.
