‘I was a boss in a brutal Mafia crime family – this is what haunts me most 25 years later’

Michael Franzese, 72, was a captain in the Colombo crime gang (Picture: Getty/Rex)

A former Mafia boss who made millions of dollars at the height of his power before risking death by walking away from the mob has revealed what still haunts him 25 years later.

Michael Franzese, 72, was a captain in the Colombo crime gang which, one of New York’s infamous ‘Five Families’ alongside the Genovese, Gambino, Lucchese and Bonnano borgatas which dominated organised crime in the city during the 20th century.

He notoriously masterminded a huge gasoline tax swindle which netted his crew a staggering $9million each week and was even portrayed in MartinScorsese’s gangster classic ‘Goodfellas’.

But when the ‘Mafia Prince’ did the unthinkable and renounced the mob in 1995, he became one of the few men to walk away from that life and live to tell the tale.

Franzese sat down with Metro.co.uk ahead of a tour across the UK and Ireland next month to discuss his darkest moment in Cosa Nostra, the role the mob played in the assassination of President John F Kennedy and how billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein could not possibly have killed himself.

His father John ‘Sonny’ Franzese is a legendary figure in the Colombo family, serving as Joe Colombo’s feared underboss. Michael describes him as ‘like the John Gotti of his day’.

He initially had no wish for his son to be involved in organised crime, but Michael decided to drop out of college to support his family when his dad was given a 50-year sentence for bank robbery.

Michael Franzese with his father John (Picture: Michael Franzese/Sterling Global)

Michael Franzese’s father pictured with Dean Martin (Picture: Michael Franzese/Sterling Global)

Convinced by his father’s innocence on those charges, he joined the Colombo family, first as a recruit before being inducted as a ‘made man’ on Halloween night in 1975.

‘I was inducted in 1975 among guys that had been waiting for 20 years to become a made member,’ he says.

‘I kind of jumped ahead of a lot of guys, but that was really out of respect for my father. I mean, I had to prove myself and I spent two and a half years doing that.’

Recalling his induction, Michael says: ‘It was a very solemn ceremony, dimly lit room, and they called us all in individually.

‘The boss was seated at the top of a horseshoe configuration with the underboss and consigliere alongside of him and all the caporegimes, or captains, were alongside of them.

‘And I walked down the aisle and stood in front of the boss held out my hand. He took a knife, cut my finger and some blood dropped on the floor – it’s a blood oath – and cupped my hands.

‘He took a picture of a saint, lit it aflame in my hands and said, “Tonight Michael Franzese, you are born again into a new life, into Cosa Nostra. If you violate what you know about this life, betray your brothers, you’ll die and burn in hell like this saint is burning in your hands. Do you accept?”

‘I said, “Yes, I do”. That’s the oath, it was very quick.’

Michael Franzese became a made man in 1975 (Picture: Michael Franzese/Sterling Global)

Franzese’s rise in the family was swift and coincided with that of other infamous mafia figures like John Gotti, Sammy ‘The Bull’ Gravano and Vincent ‘Chin’ Gigante in what was the Mafia’s ‘golden era’.

‘We had tremendous control in this country, to the point where the CIA would come to us to assassinate John Kennedy, to help them during a World War II, to assassinate Castro during the Cuban crisis.

‘That’s how powerful we were back then. When the government is coming to you for help, you know you got some juice.’

One of the most popular JFK conspiracy theories is the suggestion it was a mafia hit, and Michael is convinced.

‘It’s not a theory, it’s a fact,’ he says. ‘Look, I have no course in this race. I have nothing to gain. I’m not writing a book about it, or doing anything else, or making a movie. But I’ve heard my whole life from the time that Kennedy got killed from the right people that it was the mob that did it.

‘They were angry with him and Bobby Kennedy because Bobby turned on the mob when (FBI Director J Edgar) Hoover wouldn’t even admit that the mob existed because we had dirt on him.

‘Bobby Kennedy turned on it and people were very upset. We were supposed to have access to the White House and they double crossed us to the point where they were getting even, and I heard that.

US President John F Kennedy smiles at the crowds in Dallas minutes before he was assassinated (Picture: Bettmann Archive)

‘Now, normally in the street from guys like my dad, guys like (Colombo boss Carmine ‘The Snake’) Persico, guys like ‘Fat Tony’ Salerno, they don’t brag about stuff like this. They don’t talk about it.

‘But I heard this very definitively and very definitely, that it was a mob hit, and it was carried out through Chicago and New Orleans.

‘I mean, if I had to take a lie detector test I would pass, because that’s what I heard my whole life.’

Franzese made his name with an audacious swindle cheating the US government out of millions of dollars in gasoline taxes.

The scam was already being carried out on a small scale before he came on board and grew it into a money-making machine pulling in up to $9 million each week.

‘I think there was there was some others doing it but we mastered it. I would say we had the system that was really impenetrable at the time, because the Government couldn’t figure it out.’

‘Next to Prohibition that gas tax scheme was the biggest deal we ever had because we’re bringing in millions a week.’

In 1986, Fortune Magazine included him on its list of the ‘Fifty Most Wealthy and Powerful Mafia Bosses’, five places behind Gotti.

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‘What’s kind of sad is that 48 of those men are dead, and number 49 is still in prison,’ he says.

‘I’m the only one alive and free out of that list.’

The same is true of the other five men inducted into the family the same night as Franzese.

‘They’re all dead. I’m the only one alive from that night,’ he recalls.

Michael Franzese’s mugshot from 1993 (Picture: Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Department/Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives)

Franzese himself came under threat when a newspaper article emerged claiming he was now so powerful he was considering breaking away from the Colombos and starting his own borgata.

‘There was no truth to it but it got in people’s heads – my boss included – and I think they started to question me after that,’ he says.

‘One of the real horrors of that life is you make a mistake, or you’re in trouble, your best friend walks you into a room and you don’t walk out again. I mean, that’s part of the life.’

As with nearly all the major mafia figures of his time, Franzese’s downfall came from the inside when his business partner turned informant.

Still in his thirties and seeing bosses sent to prison for 100 years, he decided to think of an exit strategy to walk away from that life.

Michael Franzese and wife Cammy (Picture: Michael Franzese/Sterling Global)

‘I had leverage with the Government after beating them five times, so when I told them I would take a plea they were ready to negotiate,’ he says.

‘So I took a 10-year sentence with $15 million dollars in restitution, $5 million in forfeitures. I had a jet plane, a helicopter – I gave all that up and I went off to do my time.

‘And my plan after I got out of prison was just to move out to California and break away from the life.’

Franzese spent time in New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Centre – the same prison Jeffrey Epstein died in awaiting trial on federal charges for the sex trafficking of minors.

Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his prison cell (Picture: AP)

His death sparked a wave of conspiracy theories after it emerged the half-hourly checks which were meant to be carried did not happen that night and the cameras watching his cell malfunctioned.

‘I was on that tier,’ Franzese says. ‘[Epstein] would have to be a magician to kill himself.

‘Really, he would have to be the smartest guy in the world to figure out how to hang himself from the bunk.

‘You’d have to work pretty hard and it would take some time, and obviously the cameras have to be out. Nobody’s walking the tier. I was never alone on that tier, never. There’s no way that he committed suicide.’

Despite having now spent more time using his experiences to do good than he spent on the street, some of things he saw still haunt him.

‘I think the darkest moment was seeing friends, you know, get killed, especially those that I thought it wasn’t warranted,’ he says.

‘And you know, that happened to quite a few guys around me, unfortunately. And those are dark moments. I tell people all the time, murder is a horrible thing and to see it happen, or to know it happened to somebody that you really care about, it’s tough, at least for me.

‘I don’t consider myself, I’m not a hit man. Look, when I was given an order I did what I had to do because I wanted to be a good mob guy and I took an oath. But that’s not what I enjoy doing.

‘There were guys in that life where this was an everyday occurrence for them, you know, but that wasn’t me. I don’t pretend to be that person. So it was ugly when you had to see that and witness that. And it was it was tough.’

For the past 25 years, Franzese has been sharing his experiences as a motivational speaker and works to inspire youths and vulnerable adults against a life of organised crime.

Asked what advice he has for anyone else trying to come back from a dark place, he says: ‘Don’t give up. Your past is your past, but if you are determined to change and transform yourself, put the right people around, seek the right advice and be determined to do it, you can.

‘You’d be surprised how forgiving people can be when they see you’re really making an effort to do the right thing.’

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