Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese
嘉宾：Michael
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§01Transcript — part 1
In your time in the mafia, what did you witness? I'm gonna be honest with you. We're bringing in nine, $10 million a week. I was arrested 18 times, and I saw guys that died for the wrong reasons. But I'll tell you one thing, Steve. You're not gonna wanna hear this, but it's the truth. Michael Franzese, one of the highest-earning mafia members turned motivational speaker, who is sharing the ruthless lessons he learned about business, leadership, and resilience.
So there's two levels in that life. You were either a racketeer or you were a gangster. And I was a racketeer, meaning I was elevating the family by making that money. I had 18 companies defrauding the government out of tax, bringing in $10 million a week. I was living a lifestyle in a jet plane, a helicopter. What was the most cash you ever saw? 40, 50 million. In cash? In cash. Now, you can learn so much from the mafia. You know, I'll give you an example.
The art of negotiation. This is a tremendous technique to get what you want. And I always want it. So here's what you have to do. Now, you may be making all this money, but we have rules. And you don't violate the rules because the consequences are severe. There was a guy that had to kill his father and then a very dear friend of mine. He did something that was a total violation of our life, and he ended up getting killed. But the one thing that really hurt me bad, my dad had a powerful position in the mind, and he betrayed me.
That was rough. Steve, the thing is, I've done a lot of bad things in my life, but it's not the path that I wanted to take. I realized, you know, I got to get away from this. Like, you don't walk away from this life. You're not allowed to do that. When does it all come crashing down for you? Michael, who were you? Who was I? Interesting question. I, um, you know, I have to start with this because you, you just came right off the bat and asked me a question that I don't want to say stumped me, but maybe in a way did in the same way that Jordan Peterson did.
I'll tell you why. Jordan said to me, he said, Michael, you spent 20 years in that life. Obviously you did some things that were not good. I said, yeah. Well, how'd you do that? And I said, you know, Jordan, when I had to do something that I was uncomfortable with, I kind of stepped out of myself, I believe, took care of business, and then stepped back in. So he looked at me and he said, well, how do you know who the real Michael is? The guy that stepped out or the guy that's sitting here in front of me now?
I said, well, that's a good question, Jordan. I said, but I've been this guy for the last... almost 30 years, so hopefully this is the guy. So, you know, who am I? I mean, I'm a guy that, you know, at a point in time in my life, I was on the right track, loved my dad very much. And as a result of that, I followed him into this life to try to help him out. He had a 50 year prison sentence. And I thought the only way to help him, and he thought the same, was to really get on the street and do some of the work that was necessary to try to overturn a conviction that he got.
Wrongful conviction, by the way. So I became that other guy that was able to, I was going to be a doctor. I was a pre-med student when my dad got this 50-year sentence. So, but then I just, I mean, I fell into that life and I thought I did a pretty good job while I was there. And I acclimated to it pretty easily. When someone thinks about, you joining the mafia, they assume that your home life must've been a certain way. You must've had a really, really rough early upbringing.
Is that the case? You know, I had a very strict mother. I mean, she was 16 when I was born and we had a very turbulent life because of my father's involvement in that life. My father was an extremely high profile guy at that time, major target of law enforcement. So from the time I was four or five years old, my dad was in and out of jail, going on trial, and we had a lot of turbulence, police around us all the time. So I witnessed all that, was part of that.
I don't know if that contributed to, you know, who I am now. I don't know, I mean, But it certainly, I mean, it had an effect on me at that point in time. I hated the police. I hated the government. I hated anything about law enforcement because I saw them as the enemy. The way they, you know, harassing my dad, harassing my family, at least in my view at that point. So it did shape, you know, my worldview of those people at that time. And they were parked outside your house, I read.
They, we had six or seven different agencies parked around our house. And every time we left, there was a parade of law enforcement vehicles following us. I mean, it was that severe with my dad. I've never seen anything like that, quite honestly. You know, other people have had surveillance, but I guess because I grew up and I witnessed that I was part of it, but it was so intense with him. It really was. Did you know why they were there? And did you know what your dad was doing?
You know, it was hard not to, although he never sat down with me and said to me, this is what I'm all about. It was basically from other people, from what I read and what I witnessed. So yeah, I mean, I knew what he was about, but I thought it was a good thing. You know, because you know, his friends came to the house. To me, they were like Uncle Joe, Uncle this, Uncle that. Good people, you know, we'd go out together. So I thought it was a good thing at that time.
What was he about? My dad? Yeah. Yeah, very charismatic guy, you know, a good father. I mean, he wanted the best for me. He didn't want me in this life originally. He wanted me to go to school, be a doctor, get an education, stay off the street. That was his initial desire for me. He was a good husband to my mother, I thought, at that time. But, you know, he had that other side of him. that once or twice growing up, I kind of witnessed. And I saw there was something else with it.
What did you witness? You know, I'll never forget. It was really two things that happened. I was, he was taking me up. My dad was involved in the music business. So he was taking me into Manhattan to meet with some of the people, just his daily work. And along the way, he had to stop, and he had to meet with somebody. And I was in the car, and two of his guys that I knew very well with my dad, and they were talking to this guy, and the conversation got very heated.
And I see my dad really angry, never saw him like that before. And Steve, I'm not kidding. At least this was a kid's impression. I was young. He just picked that guy up by, like, his throat and had him up against the wall. And I saw the guy was horror-stricken. I didn't, you know, I never saw my dad like that before. Because he didn't hit us or anything as kids. You know, I had brothers and sisters. He didn't treat us that. My mom was tough. My mom, forget it.
She didn't spare the rob. But my dad was not. So to see him like that, I said, wow, there is really another side of him. you know, street side of him. You said there was another experience. Another experience, it was kind of funny, but in a way it wasn't. We had a carpenter that was working in our house, and he was kind of a, his name was Sal, I'll never forget, a big guy, a huge guy. And he would never finish anything on time, the carpentry. My dad would hire him because he probably didn't have to pay him much, right?
And my mom was always on him, you know, a guy that comes, he don't finish the job and all that, and came to the house once, and my dad just went off on him, punched him, like, in the house and knocked the guy out, you know, in front of all of us. We were kind of surprised, but he said, don't blame me, your mother's nagging me too much, I can't take it, you know, it was one of those things. So those, as a young person, those were the two things that I really witnessed with him.
Those were clues. Those were clues of something else. Those were a window into his other life. And what was his other life? What was the reality of his other life as you've come to understand it? Well, another thing in this, it's amazing how you can remember things sometimes at a young age, but you can't really put it together. I have to go back. The first real incident that I had is, I was probably four years old. And we were living in Brooklyn, but my dad had moved us out, me and my mom, to Long Island where my grandparents were.
We were living in their house for a while. And I didn't see my dad for a couple of days. He's gone. And then one morning he comes in and my dad had a heavy beard. He hadn't shaved. And his right-hand man was just standing out on the porch, kind of standing guard. He was standing guard. And my dad came in, hugged my mother. My mother was a little upset. She was crying. Then he came over and hugged me. I was sitting on the step at my grandmother's house.
I'm saying, what is this all about? He was there for about a half an hour, and then he left. Well, what I didn't find out till later on, our family, the Colombo family, was at war at that point. And so my dad was not at home. It was kind of dangerous to be at home. You know, it lasted for a while. And I didn't know what that meant at that time. You know, it's you look back and you put these things together later on. So really, I would say it was those three incidents.
But look, my dad was a... You know, he was a captain in that life and then an underboss in that life. So he had a very high position, powerful position. A lot of people around him, a lot of guys that were subordinate to him. And you know, he was big time in that life. He was a captain and an underboss. Yeah. I have been trying to understand the structure of a mafia family. So I printed off this to try and understand it from what I can see. And I'll put this on the screen for anyone that's interested and pin it below.
Is that somewhat accurate in terms of the structure of a Mafia family? Yeah. Yeah, that's it. These are, this is the true rankings. And that's the, I mean, there's a boss and an underboss. And the Consuliere is kind of an advisor to the boss. And then you have the capo regimes is the real term for it, or capos. And they're kind of the street bosses. They're in elevated position. And then you have the soldiers, which is the first official rank. When you get made, the term is made, the night that you take the oath and you become an official member of that life, your rank is a soldier.
And the associates are guys that are around us, but never taken the oath. They're not full fledged members. They're just associates. So from the bottom up, the bottom level is the associates. I'm gonna repeat this back to you to make sure I've got it. And they haven't taken the oath, so they've not become what you call made men. Correct. The soldiers are the first level that have taken the oath. Correct. And they report into capos. Yes. And the capos report into the underboss.
Campos can go right to the boss also. Okay. And then there's the boss above the underboss. Yes, he's the boss. He's the official ruler of the family. And your dad became an underboss. Underboss, yes. So he was one below the boss. Yes. And you mentioned your family had a certain name. What was that name? Columbo. Columbo. Yeah. What is the, because I think I need to understand the kind of history of the mafia to understand what Columbo is. Yes, yes.
Well, you know, originated in Italy, obviously, Sicily. And it was originally just a group in Italy that band together to protect their towns from marauders that were coming in and, you know, doing damage in the towns and the cities. And eventually, for some reason, they started becoming a little bit of a criminal, you know, body. And then they migrated, many of them, to New York. You know, back in 1901, 19... I think the earliest in the late 19...
I think it was maybe in 1885 or something like that was when they first started coming here to the United States. Came legally. Went to Ellis Island and came in legally. And originally, the guys that came in, they were just kind of preying on their own people in the cities that, you know, they got into. And, you know, I can go through all of this, but you go back to the days of Al Capone. I'm sure you know, you've heard that name, who originally came from Brooklyn, then went out to Chicago and, And I always say this, they were obviously involved in criminal activity, you know, loan sharking, lending money at usurious rates, extorting some of the shop owners, you know, for protection, getting money out of them, a little bit of the gambling business.
But what really happened, I always say this, it was the government, the United States government, that made the mafia strong in the United States. And when did they do that? With prohibition. Because it was then that the guys realized, hey, people want this. They want a drink. The government is banning it, but we're going to allow them to have it. And so they started to create. They got into the illegal booze business, basically. And to give you the extent of that, in New York state alone, there were 36,000 speakeasies, which were illegal bars at the time.
36,000 in New York alone. And the mafia controlled all of them. And people wanted it and they gave it to him. And it was extremely lucrative. I mean, you're talking, you know, in today's money, billions of dollars. And that's what started to create this organization. And then in the 40s, Lucky Luciano, who again came from Italy, saw that a lot of the guys were starting to war among each other. It was always power and control and money. And he said, we're not going to exist.
We're not going to survive like this. We have to become an organization, a business. And he's the one that created the Mafia Commission and split it up into families. Actually, at that time, there were nine families nationwide. And they were bosses of each family. And that's how this whole structure came about. It was in the 40s. It was actually him, Meyer Lansky, who played a significant role, even though Meyer Lansky was not a made guy because he was Jewish and you have to be of Italian descent.
But he was a right-hand man to Lucky Luciano. And that's when the mafia really came to be here in the United States. So the mafia was this one organization, and then Lucky Luciano, did you say? Yes. He split it into lots of families. Correct. Were those families actually related by Blood in any way? No. Was it just, when you say split it into families, did he essentially just appoint lots of CEOs to run different parts of the same organization? Yeah, it was called a family.
I mean, you could have called it a group or whatever you wanted to call it, but we called it families. And no, they weren't necessarily related. And somebody emerged in that group as the top guy, and he officially appointed them as the boss. And in order to have a seat on the commission, which was the ruling body of all of these families nationwide, you had to be the boss or representative of your family that the boss designated. And you can then sit on the commission.
And the commission allegedly created policy for all of the families nationwide. And that's how it worked. Allegedly. Allegedly because, you know, I got to understand that the commission was like the United Nations. Sounds good, you know, and they're going to create policy, but really you can't tell a boss of his own family what to do. He has total autonomy. So it sounded good. And sometimes the commission will make a policy that people will respect.
But if the boss of that family doesn't want to, they don't have to. And how big were the families? Yeah. In New York, we had five families. And in each of the total made guys in those families was about 750 guys. The Gambino family had about 250 guys. And this is through my era. Genovese family, 250 guys. Bonanno family, Colombo family, Lucchese's, we had about 100 and some odd each. We were the smaller families. But you had total about 750 made men, guys that actually took the oath.
And then we had a lot of associates, you know, hundreds. So we had a big presence, especially in New York. And did the families fight each other even in New York? Were there arguments amongst families? Prior to the 40s, yes. When the commission was created, yes. They would go to war among each other. Once that commission was created, there was no wars among the families. Anytime there was a war, it was a civil war, and it was always a war for power.
Our family, the Colombo family, we were one of the more violent, warring families. We had three wars during my lifetime in the Colombos, and it was always for power. Who wanted to be the boss? You don't have elections. Somebody wants to take over, it's a power struggle. And however it turns out, it turns out. Within the family. Within the family. Now, other families could say, OK, we throw our support behind you, but not with manpower. It's, you know, whoever you're rooting for at that point.
But, no, things were solved, you know, once the commission came into place and the family, things were solved amicably, usually, you know, peacefully. But there was always a lot of disagreements. There was a lot of sit downs, you know, to straighten things out. We had a lot of that. You know, I was very active in that life and I was in a sit down every other day, you know, trying to resolve something. Either one of my crazy guys got in trouble, it was a business situation.
It was a lot of that. What is a sit down? I was reading about this in your work and I found it quite interesting because I think sometimes in business as a CEO, maybe we should emulate this idea of having a sit down. We have a lot of meetings and a lot of emails and stuff like that, but it seems like you have a purer way of dealing with things. We do. A sit down was the way we resolved everything, everything. We sat down, they were structured. When I say structured, you had, normally the boss was in control of that.
If it was a serious one, rather than two captains or capos getting together. You had to bring the boss in. He was the final rule. What he says goes, like it or not. And there was rules. If you're a made guy and I'm a made guy and we're arguing over a business issue and you're lying through your teeth, I can't call you a liar. If I call you a liar, I lose the argument automatically because I disrespected you. You have to be respectful to meetings.
So if a guy's lying, you've got to figure out how to let the boss understand that without calling him a liar. And then at the end of this, whatever decision the boss makes, that's it. There's no appeals. There's no nothing. Shake hands, get up, and you leave. And that's the final ruling. So you mentioned this. I wrote a book. It was actually a business book. I'll make you an offer you can't refuse. Harper Collins was the publisher. After they heard about that, they said, we're not having any more meetings.
From now on, they're all sit-downs. He said, that's it, because it was a lot more efficient. What kind of things would get resolved in a sit-down? Normally business disputes. And then sometimes, quite honestly, you know, look, that's a life with serious consequences. And if somebody violated policy, made a mistake to the point where he was going to pay for it seriously, you had to sit down to decide his fate, basically. People speaking for him, people speaking against him, and then the boss would make the final ruling.
So that could be a serious sit-down, could be a business matter. So if in the case of deciding someone's fate, would the person you were deciding their fate, would they be sat there? No. So it'd be someone on basically speaking on behalf of one side of that decision. Correct. Things like whether this person should live. Correct. Have you ever been in a sit down where people were discussing if someone should live? And you've seen it go both ways?
Yes. Yeah. Your father got sent to prison when you were 19? Yeah, well, he finally, he was in and out before that, but he started to do time on that 50 year prison sentence. I was 19. How did that change your life? Through everything I read, you really loved this man. I loved him, he was a good dad. And he wanted the best for me at that point. And he taught me great things. I mean, he really did. You know, the one advantage I had in my life, and again, taught to me by my dad, he always said, son, be a good listener.
Listen before you speak. You know, be careful. Don't, you know, don't speak out of turn. He always told me to be a good listener. So the person I listened to the most was him. And he taught me well in that regard. So I had a lot of love and respect for my dad. And, um... When he went away, it was devastating because he was 50 years old when he went into prison. If he had 50 on top of that, he'd never come out of prison alive. That's what we thought, you know?
So it was tough. I can almost still see the emotion in you when you talk about him going away to prison. Yeah. It was a defining moment in my life because, you know, I realized things were gonna dramatically change. I mean, I was the oldest with my mom, had three younger brothers and sisters, and I knew I had to play a role in that, you know, in taking care of my mom, because my dad, when he went away, he said, listen, I'm entrusting the family to you.
He said, you know, be a good son and take care of your brothers and sisters, take care of your mother. So, I mean, I had that responsibility. And I was doing that anyway because during many of my dad's trials, my mom would go and I would, one time he was, you know, tried a couple hundred miles away from us. They moved the venue to Albany, New York, and I'm in Long Island. So my mom would be away for three or four days at a time with my dad. I'd be watching the kids.
And so, I mean, I took on that role early on, but then when he went away, it became a lot more, you know, serious. Yeah. Your life when he went away, you were studying to... Be a doctor. Be a doctor. Yeah. It's hard to imagine the sort of turn of events that happen in your life at that point. When you're studying to be a doctor, your dad goes to prison, and it ends up changing the trajectory of your life. It ends up swaying you towards the life he had just come from.
And you say that he was wrongly imprisoned. My dad was framed on that case. Framed? Yeah, 100%. I'll take it to my grave, Steve. He was... He was supposedly masterminding a nationwide string of bank robberies. And when my dad first went away, I was with him in the visiting room. We were in a jail. And I looked at him, I said, Dad, bank robbery? And he looked at me and he said, son, I'm innocent. I'm not a bank robber. I didn't order these bank robberies.
I was framed. Government framed me. My dad had never lied to me to that point. And he said, we got to work to overturn this conviction. And why did I believe? First of all, he never lied to me, so I believed it. But the four witnesses that testified against him were all drug addicts. My dad, my entire life, preached against drugs to me. He used to make up stories, parables, to show me the dangers of drugs. All of us, though, all the kids, so that we would never get involved.
He hated anything to do with drugs. Always spoke about it. So I never saw my dad as a hypocrite in that regard. He wouldn't associate with these people. No less do bank robberies with them. So it made it very real. And so it angered me in some ways, but it motivated me to say, you know what? I can't let my dad die in here, you know? And then at the same time, I was getting very close to Joe Colombo, who was the boss of our family, Colombo family.
And he kind of took me under his wing because, you know, he obviously my dad was his underboss. And I started to meet a lot more of my dad's friends. And they would say to me, Mike, what are you doing going to school? If you don't help your father out, he's going to die in prison. So I was very, it affected me in a big way. I said, I can't let that happen. And even though my dad did not want me involved in the life, but I went to visit him in the visiting room at Leavenworth Penitentiary.
And I said, Dad, I'm not going to school anymore. If I don't help you out, you're going to die in here. And we kind of argued about it because he was disappointed. He didn't want that for me. He knew the life was tough. He didn't want it for me. He wanted it for any of his kids. But I was pretty headstrong as a kid. And I said, Dad, my mind is made up. I lost interest in school. I'm not going to go. I said, you're wasting your breath. And basically, he looked at me, Steve, and, you know, and I don't ever want to be offensive to the audience, but he looked at me and he said, okay, but if you're going to be on the street, then I want you on the street the right way.
In his mind, the right way was to become a member of his life. So he looked at me and he said, I got to ask you a question, very serious. I said, go ahead. He said, if you ever had to kill anybody, could you do it? And I said, Dad, under the right circumstances, yeah, I could do it. He said, that's the right answer. He said to me, then he looked at me and he said, go home. Somebody's going to be in touch with you. Do what you're told. That's all he said.
He didn't break it down. He didn't say this is what's required of you. Nothing. Because, you know, Steve, that's a secret life. You're not supposed to talk about that life with anybody outside of it. My dad wouldn't violate that policy, even with me, his own son. He just figured, OK, kids got it in him. Go home and do what you're told. And I didn't question him. I said, okay, dad, this is what you want, just point me in the right direction. I mean, that's the kind of bond that we had together at that point.
And I left there and that's how things started for me. When you answered that question your dad asked you, were you telling the truth? Yeah. I mean, obviously I'd never been in that situation, but I thought about it and I don't remember what rolled through my mind at that point. Did I say to myself, well, this is the answer my dad wants? Or did I say to myself, yeah, I could really do it? As I sit here now all these years later, I can't honestly answer that.
But the answer was yes. He didn't ever try and stop you? Or did he? Did he ever try and persuade you out of joining the mafia? No. I mean, prior to that point, that's not what he wanted for me. But once I made up my mind, I think there was, a feeling of pride or joy in my dad. I kind of seen it in him. And that, you know, once I did become a made guy, he was overjoyed, he was thrilled. How did he or anyone else think that you joining the Mafia would help him?
Simple. Needed money for attorneys. I had kind of a business head. My dad knew that. We needed to track down witnesses and people that were involved in the case that could, you know, say this was a frame up. And that's exactly what I did. I mean, I went after all of these witnesses and to try to find them and get them to recant their testimony. I worked with the lawyers as a result of that. And eventually did get three of the witnesses to recant their testimony.
Gave them lie detector tests, proved they lied at the trial, that the FBI had gone along with the story that they met up. Because my father was such a... They wanted him so bad. They really did. And if you go back to the 60s and you look at the amount of media attention he had, you wouldn't believe it. So the FBI at that time, I believe, was complicit in this frame up because they might have known that these guys were lying. One of the witnesses told me that when they agreed to cooperate with the government, they were going to put these bank robberies or to make the mastermind somebody else.
And they actually did. A guy by the name of Tony Polici. They said, well, he was the original guy that told us how to do these bank robberies. And then when the FBI told him, this came right from the witness, the FBI told him, well, that'll get you some time off, but I ain't gonna go that far. We don't care about Tony Polisi. A guy like Sonny Franzese, that would matter. And then they went and they concocted this story because, Steve, the thing is, they committed all the bank robbers, every one of them.
And they described it in great detail at the trial. And all they said was that Sonny Francis ordered them at a meeting that we had once at the Q Motor Inn. And why did they pick the night for the meeting? Because my dad was under constant surveillance. And the FBI told them what day my dad would be available to... that wouldn't have an alibi. He's probably sitting at home. Wouldn't have an alibi to say that he wasn't at that meeting. So they structured this whole thing.
And many people afterwards have said, Sonny would never associate with these type of guys. So... You know, all those things came together. And I really, like I said, look, I went to crime. I went to jail for a crime I was guilty of, pled guilty, did my time. But this particular crime that my dad did, I take it to my grave. He was not, he was no bank robber. Was your dad a good guy? I thought so. I mean, yeah. Listen, people liked him. My dad was very well liked.
Objectively, as you sit here today, do you think he was a net positive? Listen, my dad, look, I'm going to tell you this. You know, the word on the street from the FBI, my dad was involved in 30, 35 murders. No, he never admitted that to me, about anyone in particular. He was indicted for one murder, and he was acquitted in that case, found not guilty. But my dad was, he was a tough guy, there's no question. So... If he was involved in 35 murders, as the FBI suggests, do you think he was better off behind bars?
§02Transcript — part 2
What I'm getting at here really is if they framed him, was it a net benefit to society that they framed him? Well, you know, Steve, let me, let me, I know there's going to be a tough one, but let me, let me tell you how I think. The, the, the right and just side of me, the legally just side of me says that the government is never allowed to break the law, to uphold the law. Because if you allow that to happen, then it falls into monarchy and people are not protected.
Because if they do it against sunny frenzies, they can do it against anybody. So I believe strictly the government has enough tools and weapons to get people the right way. And they do 96, 97% of the time. They shouldn't be allowed to violate the law to go after a criminal. That's my feeling on it. Now, another thing is this. People think when we take an oath, the oath of Omerta, it's an oath to stay silent. It's not an oath to lie, steal, cheat, and kill.
Does that happen as part of that light? Yes. But we're told straight out. Now, try to understand the thinking here. You come into that life, you're told straight out. We have rules. You don't ever violate another man's wife, daughter, sister, girl, never. That'll cause you to die. During my era, we weren't allowed to deal with drugs. You deal with drugs, you get caught, you die. You maybe do some other things, you're not honest with people, you disrespect somebody, you hit another maid guy, you die.
Now, we understand that. And they tell you, your best friend may be the one that pulls the trigger because the life comes before anything. That's it. You don't violate the rules. That's how we maintain control in this life. That's how we existed for 100 years. And that's how it's going to stay. So now you're saying, OK, we all agreed to this. We all admitted it. If one of us decides to violate the policy of the law and we get caught, well, we understand the consequences.
Yes. So that's how I looked at it, and that's how I justified it. Now, does that say you can go out and start to do random killings? No. If the boss tells you to go kill somebody because he doesn't like them and you do it, that's not right. But if we kill our own, and you know, you hear a lot of times, well, we only kill our own. Well, we don't only kill our own. But if we only kill our own knowing that we made that choice, well then, OK. I kind of get it in a way.
even though murder is murder and it's a crime and it's sinful, and I understand that, but that's how you justify it. But it wasn't the case that you only killed your own? Well, for some of us it was, and for others it was not. And I've seen both sides of that. You've never talked about having to kill someone, have you? No. Why is that? It's just not a subject I care to get into, you know? I, listen, I like to be as honest as I possibly can because I am a Christian and you don't want to lie to people, but it's not something I want to talk about.
I was wondering, because when I read that, I thought maybe it's because, you know, there's some might be legal retribution. Maybe it's because, you know, it's not nice for people to hear about. Maybe it's because there's still some kind of like rule where you can't say anything. but I wondered why. Maybe it's all of the above, I don't know. Well, you know, Steve, look, there's guys, there's a lot of guys on the street now. And if you go on YouTube, you'll see a number of them.
And they've admitted to murders that they were involved in. These are made guys and they've admitted to it. And many of them had struck a deal with the government. They had immunity for the crimes they committed, even murder. I mean, the government give you immunity for murder if you want to, if they want you to cooperate and help them out. It's amazing, but they'll do it. And so they have immunity. They could talk about their crimes. I didn't cooperate to that level at all.
I don't have immunity for anything that I've done in the past. You know? And listen, you know, our laws here in the United States, if you were standing next to somebody when they murdered somebody else, you're there. You could be charged for murder the same way that them. So, you know, I'm not saying I was in that position. I'm just saying that's the law. So, you know, why talk about it? Number one and number two, murder is ugly. You know, it's ugly.
It's ugly. And you don't ever want to talk about it. I mean, I don't, if I were to do something like that, I wouldn't be proud of it. I'm not trying to throw my chest out and say, hey, look what I could do. Guys go to war. They kill people all the time, you know, in defense of our country or defensive. So, I mean, it's not like, oh, God, you know, nobody. I mean, murder happens every single day. Who wants to talk about it? Some people do. I know, not me.
You got closer to the mafia when your father was sent down and this was the point where you decided not to go to school. The boss of the Colombo family brings you close, brings you under his wing. Do you have to do some kind of training or something to join the mafia? Is there any, well you do? Oh yeah, well, when you come in, so here's what happened, I leave there, The captain and the family picked me up and took me to see the boss. Now, unfortunately, Joe Colombo was assassinated.
He was shot, seriously wounded. He lingered for about seven years, and then he died as a result of these wounds. So a new boss took over, and he's passed away now. And I sat with him. This was about two weeks after my father sent word downtown that he was proposing me to be part of that life. You can't just go up to somebody and say, I'd like to join. Somebody has to propose you, vouch for you, say you have what it takes. There's a lot of nepotism in that life.
A lot of fathers brought their sons in, their nephews, whatever. So in my case, it was my dad that proposed me. And so I sat with the boss and he said to me, here's the deal. You want to become a member of our life. Your father sent the message. Is that true? And I said, yes. He said, well, here's the deal. From now on, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you're on call to serve this family, the Colombo family. That means if your mother is sick and she's dying, You're at her bedside.
We call you to service. You leave your mother, you come and serve us. From now on, we're number one in your life before anything and everything. When and if we feel you've deserved this privilege, this honor to become a member, we'll let you know. That's it. And do you accept that? And I said, yes, I do. And so over the next two and a half years, I was in like a recruit pledge period where I had to do anything and everything I was told to do, prove myself worthy.
Could have been something very menial, a lot of discipline in that life, a lot of authority, a lot of alleged respect. You had a meeting at eight o'clock, you weren't there at 7.30, you were late. You can never be late in that life. I don't care what the situation is. You had a meeting at eight o'clock, if there was traffic and you were concerned, come the night before and sleep in the car. Can never be late, no excuses. You know, drive the boss to a meeting, sit in the car three, four, five hours.
God forbid you leave. You go to the restroom, get a newspaper. He comes out. You're not there. Oh, my gosh. We could have had trouble. You were the getaway driver. You weren't there. I know I did that once, and I paid the price, you know, for it. That's very serious stuff. You paid the price. Well, paid the price. In other words, I got a real good tongue lashing. I'll tell you, you know, you know, just stuff like that. They kind of put you on the shelf for two weeks, you know, to make you understand the seriousness of what you did.
So you never do it again. You never repeat your mistakes in that life. If you're smart, you want to if you want to number one, want to survive and number two, you want to move up and never repeat your mistakes. So, you know, things like that. And then, look, I'm going to be honest with you, you know, as honest as I possibly can. It's a violent life at times. If you're part of the life in some shape or form, you're part of the violence. And if anybody tells you differently, they're either not being honest or they weren't a made member of that life.
And that's just how it goes. Why did you say that? Because you said the menial and then you said it's a violent life. Are you saying that in that sort of probationary two years, you had to do both of those things? You had to be involved in the violence and do the menial stuff? Yeah. Let's put it this way, they gotta have enough faith in you that you can be capable of doing whatever it is they tell you to do. They have to understand that and feel that because if they don't feel that, you're not going anywhere.
That's it. So during that time, you're gonna be tested. And you were tested? Yeah. When they made you pledge that if your mother was dying and you were at her bedside and they called you and asked you to do something, you'd leave. would you have left if your mother was dying? Back then, I mean, I might have. I mean, you know, I was a play-by-the-rule guy. You know, I... You know, I was very fortunate in that I had a great teacher in my dad. He was a student and master of the life.
And so, and I was like a sponge. I absorbed whatever my dad told me. I listened. And, you know, some of the things that he told me were right. So I might have at the time. I'm going to be honest with you. I mean, I don't know. It would have to depend on what's happening at that moment. But, you know, I was so indoctrinated into that life at some point. It's who I was. Sounds a bit like a cult in a way. It's cult-like, I guess, in a way. I mean, we didn't do silly things.
We wouldn't have rituals and ceremonies other than that one. Sounds like a one. Other than that one, nothing after that. But what did it teach you about people skills, because you're around these bosses, these very talented men. You're seeing how they conduct themselves, do business, influence people, win friends. What did that phase of your life teach you about how to be a motivator slash manipulator of people? Yeah, it taught me well. I think I got it.
You know, there's kind of two levels in that life. You're either a racketeer or you're a gangster. What's the difference? I'll tell you the difference. A gangster is a guy that really doesn't know how to use that life to benefit him in business. So he's more of a, I don't want to say tough guy, I don't want to say the term, but he's more of a guy that, hey, we had something done, this is the guy, send him out, let him do it, because you've got to earn your keep in that life.
We in the Colombo family had 115 made guys at that time. Out of the 115, 20 of us were really earning money and supporting the family in some way and really elevating the family. We were racketeers. Now a gangster could never really be a racketeer. He just doesn't know how. But a racketeer has to be a gangster also because you're going to be called upon. Not as much as this guy, but when you're called upon, you got to do it. So, you know, I was more of a racketeer.
And as a result of that, I was constantly in business disputes and sitting down with other guys. And you have to learn, you know, how to negotiate. I mean, I learned the art of negotiation at these sit-downs. You know, learned how to try to, you know, really before I walk into a meeting with somebody, number one, try to know the personality of that person. Know if there's a fallback position, if I'm not winning, what I'll accept. And so I had to prepare myself for these meetings because unprepared, you know, they'll chew you up because a lot of these old timers were very skillful.
And believe me, you could be 100% right and end up wrong, and they'll put you in a trap. So you really had to know what you were doing. And so my people skills in that regard, as far as negotiating and identifying a true leader, were really honed to a high degree because I came out on top many, many times. What are the principles of, in your view, of a good sell or a good negotiation? Are there small things that you saw within the mafia that you probably don't see in the outside world?
One of them you've already named, which is this idea of being really punctual. But it seems like respect is at the very heart of much of what you've said. What are those small things that are important for a negotiation or a sales pitch, in your view? Well, understand, you know, again, you know, I always learn this. There's sometimes you can walk into a room and be the smartest person in the room. You don't want anybody to know that. And you want people to just talk.
Let, you know, just talk. Give them an opening. Give them, throw them a bone so that they're going to come back and talk and learn the personality of this person. Learn, you can learn so much from people just when they talk and you keep quiet. There's other times when you're not the smartest person in the room. And by keeping quiet, nobody knows that. What is this guy thinking? What is this thinking? It's a tremendous technique. And in that life, it was extremely valuable for me.
I was always the last guy to talk. Tell me everything, you know? And it helped me kind of master that art in that life because these guys never sell them short. There were some very smart guys there. If they weren't in that life, they would have been successful somewhere else, you know? Very smart. So you had to really know what you were doing because the consequences, too, were very severe. I mean, you could walk in there and lose your shirt, you know, because the boss could say, hey, not only are you going to pay this guy this, but you're going to pay the family everything else.
And everything you got, I'm taking away from you right now. That's how severe it could have been. So you, yes, you really had to know. I'll tell you this. When I, I think, you know, I was in the gas business, right? The gas tax business. I was defrauding the government out of tax on every gallon of gasoline. It was probably the biggest scam since the days of prohibition. Explain to me how that was even possible. The law at that time is that the gas tax was collected by a wholesaler.
You had to be a licensed wholesaler. But the government really wasn't up to their collection process. So to make a long story short, I had 18 companies that were licensed to collect the tax on every gallon of gasoline. They were all shell companies, every single one of them. And they were all Panamanian companies. Why Panama? Because a corporation in Panama had bearer stock. You give me the stock, I'm the owner. I give it to you, you're the owner.
So we didn't have to give a lot of information. The only reason I needed the company was number one, to get the license, and number two, to open a bank account. I didn't need brick or mortar. I need anything, right? That's all I needed. So now I'm allowed to collect the tax. Well, we had a very sophisticated process or strategy to collect that tax for about 10, 11, sometimes a whole year before the government came down on us because we had a report.
We had to pay quarterly and so on and so on. They were very slow. They're very slow. So we had a way to keep them at bay for almost a year. When they finally came down on us, we closed the office, closed that license and just started operating under a new license. Well, I ran this for seven years. So just to summarize, I'll make sure I'm clear. You had the supply chain coming from Panama? No, we had the companies were Panamanian companies. Okay, right.
So where was the gas coming from? Gas was coming from, we were buying barges as they came over from the Middle East, and we were buying gas from all the major oil companies. OK, so you bought the gas with a shell company in Panama, which allowed you to get the wholesale license so that you could collect the tax from the retailer of the gas. And then you would sell it to the retailer. Right. And then when the government come for their tax, maybe 12 months later, you say, sorry, the company's gone bust and you shut it down.
We wouldn't say anything. The door would be closed. There would be nobody there. They wouldn't even know where to go. Ah, okay. Yeah. So were you then giving the retailer a discount on the gas? Yes. Okay. You know, the way I do it, let's say, you know, and I had 350 gas stations I either owned or operated, 300 plus gas stations we either owned or operated, leased, whatever. But if we would go buy a gas station on a corner where there were four stations and you have a lot of that in New York, We would buy one station, lease one station.
Could have been a mobile, any brand. Didn't matter. And we'd get the other three station owners and say, come here. We want to talk to you. Here's the deal. OK, whatever you sell the gas for, we're going to be two cents cheaper. If you go down five, we'll go down 10. If you go down 10, we'll go down 20. Because I had 40 cents to work with in most cases. I said, we'll put you out of business. So just stay, understand that we're going to stay two cents.
We don't want to kill you. We want you to earn money. But we're always going to be cheaper. Before you know it, they're buying all their gas from us anyway. So we were selling all four stations being supplied by us. Because look, the gas station owner, if you're saving them five, six, seven cents a gallon, 10 cents a gallon, it's a lot of money if they're doing volume too. So we were selling gas to everybody, branded stations, unbranded stations, didn't matter.
And the government just could not keep up with us. So when I realized what I had, you'll appreciate this. I went to my boss at the time, call my person, go, he's passed on now. And we called him Junior, and I said, Junior, here's the deal. I'm going to show you more money than you've ever seen in your life, because I realized what I had, right? He says, we don't do drugs. I says, not drugs. You know, I hate drugs. There's nothing to do with drugs.
He says, what is it? I said, it's gas. Gas? I said, yes, tax money. Oh, okay, that's clean. I said, but here's the deal. everybody's going to want a piece of this. Everybody on the street, when they realize what I have here, they're going to want a piece of it. So here's what you have to do. You have to make me win every argument. I said, anytime I sit down, doesn't matter what family it is. I said, don't play politics. You know, I said, I'm not telling you as the boss what to do, but I'm telling you I'm going to make you wealthy.
I said, I'm going to make you wealthy. So I said, make me win every argument. I'm going to be right anyway. I'll come in right. I said, so make me win. I'll make you more money than you ever seen before. I'll never forget, Steve. He just stood back like this. He said, show me. OK. I was bringing him $2 million a week at Build Up 2. That buys a lot of loyalty and a lot of wins on the street, because I was constantly sitting down with people. They wanted a piece, wanted this, wanted that.
Then if somebody wasn't, I wasn't the only guy in the business. We just did it better than anybody else. But if somebody wanted to buy gas from us, I'd say, okay, but you gotta pay. If you don't pay, it's gonna be a problem. So when people didn't pay, we had to sit down. I always won. You know, so it was, I mean, look, it elevated. I became a captain as a result of the money that I was turning in. And I had a big crew under me. I was living a lifestyle in a jet plane, I had a helicopter, I had a lot.
We're bringing in seven, eight, nine, $10 million a week at times. It was that big. Selling a half a billion gallons of gas a month, taking down 30, 40 cents a gallon, whatever we decided to charge somebody at that time. It was a lot of money. That's a lot of money. I think I'm in the wrong business. No, you're in the right to this. Yeah, yeah. From what I understand, you're doing pretty well. So it's okay. So seven to 10 million a week, I'm not doing that well.
Does this little gas loophole still work? Let's put it this way. I'm out of it. And I don't even want to be tempted. So if I wanted to become a made man back then, which is basically when you kind of swear the oath and you join the mafia, that was after your two years of sort of probationary period being an intern. I mean, that process of becoming a made man sounded a little bit culty. Well, I'll tell you this, you know, when I got straightened out, and we call it straightened out, believe it or not.
You're straightened out, that's when you become a made man. Right. You know, same term. But that was in 1975. For 20 years prior to that, almost 25 years, they had a term that the books were closed. They weren't bringing any new guys into the life. And that was nationwide. Right. Security reasons, they said. The only time you can make a guy is if a guy died in a family, you could replace him. So you're replacing the ranks, but you couldn't bring anybody else in.
Well, in the mid seventies, they opened the books. Okay, now we're gonna start to build the families up again. When I was made, there was guys waiting 20 years, 25 years. Yeah, that were part of that, and just waiting for the day when they can have their turn. So I was definitely a younger guy. I mean, it was a couple of younger guys that got in at that time. You know, the double-edged sword, because there's a lot of resentment to the young guys that got in after two, three years, and guys are waiting 20, 25 years.
It's like anything else. It's just that you have the resentment from the older guys, and I had to deal with that. It's just that, again, it's a little more severe on the street than it would be in normal life. Do you still, you become a made man, you have to swear an oath to the mafia. What is that oath that you swear? Yeah. Well, for me, it was Halloween night, 1975, when I took the oath. It was me and five other guys that night. And you don't have any preparation.
They just tell you, wear a suit, and then all of a sudden, that night it happens. You kind of get maybe a little inkling, because you're waiting for this to happen. And we walked into a room individually. It was late at night, a very solemn ceremony. A dimly lit room. The boss was seated at the head of like a horseshoe configuration. The underboss and the consulary were to his left and right. And all the cop-a-de-rgimes were alongside of them. Soldiers can't attend this.
Only the copos. Only the brass of the family. I walked down the aisle, stood in front of the boss. I held out my hand. He took a knife, cupped my finger. Some blood dropped on the floor. This is a blood oath. I cupped my hand. She took a picture of a saint, Catholic altar guard, put it on my hands, lit it a flame. Didn't hurt it, burnt quickly. It was merely symbolic. And he said, tonight, Michael Francis, you are born again into a new life, into Cosa Nostra, this thing of ours.
Violate what you know about this life, betray your brothers and you will die and burn in hell like the saint is burning in your hands. Do you accept? Yes, I do. And that's how it started. That's the oath. Very fast, very simple, very serious. Were you scared when you walked into that room? I was exhilarated that night. I was like, wow, finally. You know, I'm going to have this even closer bond with my dad. I've worked for this now for two and a half years.
I was exhilarated that night. I mean, so were the other five guys, everybody. Why, when you look back with the wisdom that you have now as to why you joined that life, I know your father was a catalyst in some respects, but I imagine it's probably a bit more complex than it just being about your father. What were your genuine motivations for? You know, quite honestly, I didn't aspire to be a mom guy. I mean, even though I admired my dad, it's not the path that I wanted to take.
It didn't say, wow, I wish I could do that. You know, and it's kind of odd because a lot of the young people I speak to now, a lot of these gangbangers go into juvenile halls and prisons, and they say the same thing. Wow, you guys had all the money, you had all the power, you had the cars, you had the women, and it turned them on. And that's what they wanted to be, that guy. I didn't have that feeling, maybe because I grew up with it, maybe because that was my dad.
You know, we didn't grow up poor, weren't wealthy, but we didn't really, you know, want for anything. We had a roof over our head. We went on a vacation every once in a while. So we didn't struggle financially in that regard. So, I mean, it's not something I aspired to be. It was strictly, strictly to help my dad. Really? Yeah, it really was. Then, of course, as I get into the process, well, now I want to complete it. I want to become that made guy.
I'm working for it. You know, it's like anything I do. You know, I want to complete it. I want to succeed. So that became part of it. And then, you know, because watching my dad is one thing, going through the process, understanding what the life is about, being around the other guys that were mentoring me, Now I started to really get an understanding of the life. Dare I say you sound like you were maybe slightly different in a sense of your intentions of being there were slightly different from those around you in that life.
What were everybody else's intentions? What were their motivations? And I was wondering as you were speaking about the different personality types you must have encountered in that life. I've heard you say before, there are two types of people in the Mafia. People who enjoyed killing and people who were just following orders. Which camp were you in? Oh, definitely following orders. I mean, I was... Listen, there was some, you know, I can mention his name because everybody knows it, isn't that?
But there's a guy by the name of Roy DeMeo. I don't know if you ever heard that night. Roy was, you know, he was a serial killer, no question. But what I say about Roy, and I knew him, Roy would have been a serial killer if he wasn't in the mafia. The mafia didn't make him a serial killer. That's just who he was. I mean, he enjoyed it. You know, and there were guys like that. He enjoyed it. I think so. Had to. Because how could you do that? I mean, a couple of hundred murders.
And if you know, he had a place called the Gemini Club. It was a club that he had. And they described the way they would kill. Because some people became informants that were involved with him. And I mean, killing people, chopping up bodies, I mean, it was gruesome. You know, I mean, you're a different kind of human being if you're doing stuff like that. Have you, your experience in the Mafia must have taught you something about the nature of humans and what we're capable of?
Because we all walk around thinking that we're quote unquote good. and that we are just, we were born with this perfect sort of moral compass and that none of us are capable of doing violent things or morbid things or amoral things. But you must have a slightly different perspective on that. Yeah, not true at all. I think just the opposite. I think we all have something in us that, you know, if we're triggered in the right way, we can do damage.
Let's put it that way. I've seen that my whole life. sometimes for the right reasons and sometimes for the wrong reasons. Obviously, if you're in defense of your family, of your friend, I mean, you might do some horrible things to somebody that's trying to victimize them. But there's others that just do it because they can do it. And I've seen that, I've seen both. Do you think things like murder are part of human nature? Yes, absolutely. I do believe that.
I mean, you know, and I want to be clear on this, be careful on this. Murder is murder. Murder is murder. The reason you commit it is another thing. But listen, you go into the military, you're killing people on the other side. Why are you doing it? Well, I'm defending my country, and I get it, and I understand that. And that's a noble thing. supposedly, right? But you're still committing murders. You still have it in you. You could have been the nicest guy in the world.
Okay? You could have been the most laid-back, soft person in the world. You go into the military, they're going to teach you to be a killer, and you're going to do it. So you have it in you. You know? It's a tough thing, but I think everybody has the capability of doing something, doing damage. Let me use that word. How have you been affected by what you saw? Because I can imagine your eyes have seen some things that mine absolutely haven't. And it's impossible to think that one can just shake that off.
You know, I've been blessed in a way that, sometimes my wife gets upset with me, that I can compartmentalize things pretty well. And I think it's the result of being in that life. And I think this is what triggered it for me, Steve. I had a fellow that when my dad went to prison, he was, they called him Artie the animal. He's a real tough guy, right? He was a Jewish guy, but I loved him. He was like a second dad for me. My father and him were very close.
§03Transcript — part 3
When my dad went away, he kind of, again, took not only me, but my whole family, very close with his family. He had younger kids. His wife was wonderful. And he got murdered. I was young. I was 17, 18 years old. And he got murdered. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I made a mistake. It was when my dad first went into prison. So I was 19 or 20. And I walked into the funeral parlor, I'll never forget. And his sister came up to me and hugged me. And she said, you need to come with me.
You need to look at what these animals did to my brother. I'll never forget the words. The coffin was closed. And she opened the coffin, and he was unrecognizable. There's a guy I loved. I didn't faint, but it got to me. It really got to me. I'd never seen anything like that before in reality, especially somebody I really cared for, really loved. And it did have an impact on me, there's no question. But somehow I was able to get beyond that as a young person.
I don't know what that says about me in that regard. And I'm able to do that about certain things. Even if it's wrong, this was wrong, I can't sit on it. I can't let it get to me. I can't, I got to overcome it. And I think that was a defining moment in my life to be able to move that and then continue to move into the life. Because I said, this is part of it. Do you regret that she did that, that she showed you him? Yeah, I didn't need to see that.
I didn't need to. She did it out of love. She didn't do it out of, because she loved me, and she was her sister, devastated. And I think she felt close enough to me because she knew how I cared about Artie and how he cared about me. So she just, it was grief. No other reason, you know? It was a sincere move that she did. But I didn't need to see that. And you know what? There's times when I have visions of that. My wife, you know, I have a tendency in my sleep, things don't come out of me when I'm awake, but when I'm in my sleep, she says, you know, you had a fight last night, who was it with?
And it happens fairly often. You know, more than I think a normal person. But I don't remember. I wake up, hey, I'm fine. You see him in your sleep? I have. Yeah, I have. Again, that was like, boom, you know, when something just impacts you in a way like, whoa. Whoa. Well, compartmentalizing sounds like a good short-term strategy to things, to grief, to traumatic events and things. But I don't know if I believe one can truly compartmentalize something forever without it rearing its head somewhere else.
I almost see it like kind of like whack-a-mole. Like I might be able to shut it down in this part of my life, but it's probably going to emerge over here in some other way. I agree with that. I think when something is so severe, even at that moment, I think it could last and come out in different ways. I mean, another thing, there was a very dear friend of mine. He was like a brother to me, and he ended up getting killed. And that had an impact on me because I honestly tried to save him and I couldn't.
Yeah, because he, without getting into the details, he did something that was total violation of our life. And he lost his life as a result of it. And I couldn't save him. I tried, but I couldn't. He was in the mafia? Yeah. So there was a sit down, I'm presuming. Yeah. It was decided that he wasn't gonna live. Were you in a sit down? I was in a number of sit downs in my life, you know? Yeah, it was a tough one. You know, one of the horrors of that life is, you know, you make a mistake, your best friend walks you into that room, you don't walk out again.
And throughout the course of my life, I've seen that. Obviously, I've seen guys that, you know, here one day gone the next. And it's... It's one of the evil parts of that life. There's no question. And I saw guys that died for the wrong reasons. You know, it's like anything else. You know, in the corporate world, you have greed and you have backstabbing and all of that, but you lose your job, you lose some money, you move on. In that life, the consequences are severe.
So... I was thinking about my best friend. And I was thinking if my best friend did something which was disrespectful in some way, I don't know, he stole something, maybe he, something even more extreme, he slept with my sister. You know, I wouldn't want him to die. No, you wouldn't want him to die. But in the life you came from, he would die? It's the most severe policy. I'll tell you this, I'll tell you how severe it is. There was another guy, you know, I don't have to mention his name, it was two brothers that were made guys in that life and I was friendly with them both.
One of them happened to be in our family, the other one was with another family. But I drove him home to Brooklyn one day and, He got out of the car and I said, I'll see you. He said, no, wait, wait, don't leave yet. I said, okay, I'll wait. So he opened the door of his house and he looked in and like he was looking at something, I wasn't really paying attention, but then I seen him close the door and come out. And he got in the car and I said, what happened?
He said, well, nobody's home. I said, but that's your house. What do you mean nobody's home? Why does somebody have to be home? And he said, I can't go in my house. I said, what do you mean? Well, his father... had been caught fooling around with somebody else's wife or daughter at the time. And him and his brother were given the contract and he killed his father. And he said, anytime I walk in the house, if I'm alone, the ghost of my father is in there and haunts me.
So he said, I haven't been in my house alone in 20 some odd years. He killed his own father? Yeah. Now, I wanna, you know, I don't wanna, How should I say this? I don't want to give the impression that that's what the life is all about every day and all the time. It's not. But there are extreme cases where these things happen. And that's what makes it a bad life. And I call it an evil life because families are destroyed as a result of this. I don't know any family of any made member of that life that hasn't been devastated.
Including my own now not my wife and kids have been able to spare them of that praise God, but my mother 33 years without a husband When she passed away in 2012 her relationship with my dad ugly Because she blamed him for everything that went wrong rightfully so he was gone only 40 years my dad did on that 50 So what went wrong my sister 27 years old dies of an overdose of drugs and My brother, 25 years a drug addict. Steve, you don't know what I had to do to save his life so many times.
Kid, you know, drug addict. If he wasn't my brother, my father's son, he would have never made it. My younger sister, 40 years old, she died young. She was never mentally stable. The whole family was devastated. And my father ended up doing 40 years out of 50 in that prison. He was out a few times on parole, but 40 years out of the 50. His life destroyed, basically. So any lifestyle that does that to a family is a bad life. It's an evil life. And I don't know any family of any member that hasn't met a similar fate in some way, shape, or form.
So, you know, I came to that conclusion. I said, this is bad. And what got me out of it, you know, I met a young girl that I fell in love with. She was 20 years old, my wife. We're married 39 years this week. I said, am I gonna do this to this girl and marry her? I'm a major target. I'm never gonna get away with this long-term. I had huge bulls are on my back. I went to trial five times. I had seven indictments, arrested 18 times. They were never going to let me go.
They had a 14-agency task force that was assigned to put me in jail forever. It's all documented. So I said, what am I going to do? I'm going to marry this girl, and in two years, I'll be in jail for the rest of my life. So that's what started to give me, I got to get away from this. Do you think you would have gotten away from it just with the well of love alone? No. If it was, you know, I really thought about this myself so often, you know, I had an incident where my dad actually betrayed me.
And it was devastating to me. And it made me think, I said, if this life can separate father and son, what do I really have here? What do we really have? What are we doing here? And I didn't meet my wife until two years after that. but I don't, if that act of betrayal didn't happen for my dad, I don't know if I would have ever left the life because the pull he had on me was very strong. I don't know if I would have walked away, but I think that had to happen to kind of separate me from him and really make me understand that this life, if it could separate us, what is it?
What was the betrayal? What was the betrayal? I was called into a room one night. It was over money. There was an article that came out in a Long Island newspaper. I think it was the Long Island Press out of circulation now that said I was becoming powerful enough to take over, to stop my own family, break away from the Columbo, stop my own family. No truth in it whatsoever. Some reporter just made it up because I was doing well. I had a jet plane, helicopter, big crew.
I was in the media. What was your net worth and how old were you? I was, well, when I walked away from that life, I was 34. This was, I was around 30 at that point, 29, 30. Do you know what your net worth was? I have no idea because I had a lot of cash. It was in the millions for sure. It was a lot of money. And then it was saying that I had defrauded the government at $2 billion. It wasn't $2 billion. It was a lot of money, but, you know, they always exaggerate.
So now guys on the street are starting to get a little... $2 billion, his own family. I had the Russians. I had organized the Russians with me. We had a very strong crew and a lot of guys around me. So I think, too, they walked me into that room one night, and my father was in there before me. And, I mean, this story can take an hour, so I don't want to hold you up with it. But the bottom line is I... talked my sense into them and said, basically, I'm bringing you all this money and I'm being put on the spot for this.
I said, I'm taking all the risk. Nobody else is in jeopardy here. These are my guys. Nobody knows who you are. I purposely kept my guys away from them so that if my thing ever blew up, we wouldn't be hurting any of the guys in the family. And I said, and now I'm being questioned. I said, they write an article about me, all of a sudden it's true, they write about everybody else it's false. So I started to get angry with the boss. You don't do that.
You know, you never outshine the master. You know that principle and that life for sure. So I calmed myself down. I said, okay, I'm walking out of here. Everything's going to be all right. And then we finished up and, you know, we have a glass of wine. Everything's great, you know, the usual thing. And then it wasn't until I got in the car with the guy that drove me there, who I knew my whole life. He was a captain along with me. And I got in the car and I got very upset with him.
I said, you knew, you didn't tell me what was happening here tonight. I'm walking into a trap. And you don't prepare me. You don't say anything to me. You know what he said, Steve? Steve? He looked at me and he said, if it was the other way around, would you have told me? And I said, you smart guy. And I said, no. He said, Michael, you know the life as well as anybody. You grew up around the best. I said, okay. I go to get out of the car and he grabs my hand, my arm, and he says, I'm going to tell you something.
You're not going to want to hear this, but it's the truth. I am your friend. He said, we live by a certain code, but I am your friend. I said, what? Your father was in there before you tonight. He didn't help you one bit. He hurt you in there tonight. And I was like devastated. I said, what do you mean? And I said it to myself. I didn't ask him. I couldn't even answer him. I was starting. I got out of the car and was walking towards my car. And I started to think, knowing my father so well.
I said, I know what he did. Hey, my son is stealing. He does everything. I'm on parole. I don't know what he's doing. I have no idea. He just kind of took the high road and left me on my own instead of standing up for me because we were both captains at that point. My dad could have forcefully said, how dare you? My son would never rob me. He could have really came out, but he didn't. I was really on my own. And I could have been dangerous. You know, again, the traps that they set up for you during that time, because believe me, they would have loved to take over my business and just, you know.
And you got to watch for that. So the traps that were set up, fortunately I was able to navigate them, but it really was devastating. Cause I said, how could that happen? And you were running multiple businesses at that point, not just the fuel business? No, I had, well, I had legitimate business. I had two automobile agencies. I had a Mazda dealership, very successful. I had a Chevrolet dealership, successful. I had a leasing company. I had a film production company at that time.
I was making movies. I made about 30 films during that time. All horror exploitation films, they were big at that point. I had a number of restaurants that I was involved in. I had a video shop when video cassettes and everything were big. Didn't compete with Blockbuster, but we had a good neighborhood spot. So I had a lot of things going on. I had a lot of money on the street. I was lending money out to a lot of my own guys. I'd lend it to them.
They in turn would lend it to somebody else. So I mean, I had a lot going on. And did you have to pay a tax to the mafia for earning money? Did you have to then pay the mafia some of that money? If it was illegitimate, yes. Okay, so if it's legal, no. If it's legal, no. Unless they contributed in some way, and they didn't. My dealerships were mine. I didn't owe them anything. You know, my film company was mine. But anything I had on the street, yes, you have to pay up.
How did being part of the mafia help you in business? Could you just, you told me the gas station story. I imagine you weren't strong arming your way all the time into business, or were you? Didn't have to strong arm, you know. Listen, the Mazda agencies that I got, people knew who I was. You know, I was going broke. I didn't have any money. I was on trial a couple, I was broke. But I told the guy, I said, listen, I understand the business. I'm very aggressive.
Give me the place. You know who my father is, you know. Ah, you got it. I'm going broke. So he gave me the dealership, basically. And then through a series of things, I was able to get floor planning. I mean, it was a whole stuff. I worked hard, Steve. I was a seven-day-a-week working guy. worked hard. I kind of understood certain things like, you know, right away, there was a guy in General Electric Credit, you know? I went to him. I knew he kind of was fascinated with the life.
And I said to him, look, I need a floor plan for my cars. I don't have any money. I said, I need a couple hundred thousand dollars. I gotta be able to buy cars from Mazda. I said, I'll give you so much your car. I said, you floor plan me. I'll play it straight with you. Every car I sell, I'll give you a couple of hundred bucks. He was in trouble, he floor planned me. That's how I got the floor plan. What's the floor plan? Floor plan is financing to buy the cars from the manufacturer so you can put them on your yacht.
Oh, I can just say that. They don't give you credit, you gotta buy them. When does it all come crashing down for you? Well, came crashing down really, like I had went to trial five times and is either dismissed or acquitted in every case. I beat him five times, but it came crashing down in the gasoline tax case. My partner who he and I developed this scheme together. He was really the brains of it. I was the polish. I knew how to do certain things that he couldn't do, but he came up with the scheme.
I brought the accountant in. I brought a certain strategy in. I brought people to the table, and I made sure nobody messed up and we got the right money. I was the expansion part of the business, you know. And he became an informant. He got in trouble on an unrelated case. And they told him, listen, you're going to jail forever unless you give us Michael. And that's when it started to come down on me. I took a plea to the gasoline case, even though he had testified against me in a prior case, and I was acquitted.
We destroyed him on the stand. He wasn't a good witness. But part of my strategy, I'll take a plea. I knew my wife at that point. I'm going to marry this girl. I'll get a lower sentence by taking a plea. I'll give the government back some money. I gave up my plane, my helicopter, the whole bit. Take it. Forfeitures. I had $5 million in forfeitures and $15 million in restitution. I had to pay them. So it was part of my strategy to take a plea do some time, give them some money, move out to the West Coast to marry this girl and then try to get out of her life.
It's part of my strategy, really. How'd you feel about him? You know, I'm gonna tell you God's honest truth. He was six foot four, almost six five, 450 pounds, big guy. He wasn't a sloppy fat, he was a big guy, right? We were together seven, eight years, never had an argument. His kids called me Uncle Michael. I was married before for a short time, and my young kids called him Uncle Larry. We made millions together. But I knew he was weak. I knew if he ever got in trouble.
And look, when he got in trouble, they said to me, we'll take care of him for you. And I said, listen, I'm gonna fight him. His wife, I know his family, I can't do it. I said, just, I'll fight him in court. They were upset with me for making that decision. That was my decision. I said, I'll fight him in court. And that's what happened. How do you feel about him? It's almost like, I couldn't even be really upset with him because we got along so well.
We made so much money. I just knew he was weak. So, you know, I learned one thing, Steve. I try not to put the blame on anybody else. Anything that goes wrong, I take responsibility for personally. I should have known better. Even if some guy does me wrong, why didn't I figure that out? Why didn't I know this? I always try to take responsibility so I don't make the same mistake again. It's worked for me my whole life. When you start playing a blame game, all it does, it's a sign of weakness in my view.
And, you know, if you accept responsibility for everything, even when it really isn't your fault, and you say, I should have known better, come on. How did I do this? Why did I let this guy take advantage of me like this? You know, until right now, I have a situation now, I'm saying the same thing, my fault, you know, what am I going to do, get mad, you know? So, you know, it's just the way I operate. So was I really upset with him? Like, you know, no.
When you say you knew he was weak, how are you defining... weakness and strength. I knew if he got in trouble, he wouldn't stand up. He would cooperate. He didn't want to go to prison. He wasn't a guy that was going to do jail time. I knew that. And my other guy, you know, one of the things is, my boss always wanted to meet him. And I said, I'm not going to make, and I know why they wanted to meet him. You know, in case of anything, they would take him away from me, right?
I said, I'm not going to make you meet him because he's weak. If we ever get, he's going to give up everybody. So why would I make him meet you? And then you're going to blame me for introducing him to you. Strategy, right? They couldn't say no to that. They couldn't say no. And I said it in front of people. I said, I'm telling you, this guy is not going to stand up. When I have a problem, he's my problem. I'll take care of it my way. But I'm not going to introduce him to people that he can put in trouble.
No way. And they couldn't argue with that. It was part of my strategy. So when he snitched effectively, did they not want to take care of him? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. They said, we'll handle it for you. You know, turn us, you know, let us know. They wanted him out of the picture. So they didn't want this to end because they figured if he's gone, I can still keep this going. How easy was that for them to order someone's murder? Because it sounds so matter of fact, like, I will take care of this.
The boss had total, how hard was it for the boss to order a murder and then have it executed? Yeah. It wasn't hard at all. It was not hard at all. Especially it was with somebody within our life. It wasn't hard, unfortunately. So the boss could just say, take care of him and then someone would go and do it? Absolutely. No questions asked. Boss at that point say, he's gonna go. They need to sign it to somebody and then it's up to them how they handle it.
What if they didn't handle it? They'd be in trouble. They got to handle it. Was there ever an instance you can recall where someone didn't handle it? Well, it could have been an aborted attempt. And if it was a legitimately aborted attempt, you're normally not going to be held responsible for that. But if you're given a job, you better get it done. Let's put it that way. Or you're going to be responsible. In some ways, yes, you could be, especially if that person goes on to do something hurtful to everybody else.
Eventually you do get sent to prison. You take a plea deal. What's your plea deal? I pled to, it was a racketeering case. The underlying act was tax fraud and two counts that I pled guilty to, racketeering, conspiracy, something. And 10-year prison sentence, $15 million, $14.7 million in restitution, $5 million in forfeitures. And I went off- Did they leave you with any money? No. Well, yes, because in negotiating the plea, I was able to keep certain things and not.
I said, listen... If I'm gonna take a plea, my wife's not gonna go to work. I'm gonna make sure my wife, my kid, they're all okay. So I'm gonna keep some of the money. So when you're negotiating a plea, my lawyer, he was able to at least give me enough. My wife never had to go to work when I was in jail. I was wondering this because a lot of the things you describe sound like they were done in cash. A lot of cash, no question. But there was a lot of wire transfers and money sent in different places.
We had a lot, but not everybody paid. And you were selling to legitimate gas station owners. They didn't pay you in cash all the time. And especially when you're selling big volume, there was a lot of wire transfers, a lot of wire activity. What was the most cash you ever saw in person? Oh gosh. I think the most I've ever seen is like 10K. I just don't- 10K? Well, I've just never seen a lot of cash. In my lifetime, I don't even have a wallet. You don't deal with cash.
I just have my phone, so. You know, probably 40, 50 million around there. In cash? In cash, yeah. Yeah. You've seen 40 or 50 million in cash. When was that? Back in the 80s, early 80s. Was it just in a room or something? Yeah, it was in a room. Yeah. How big does a room have to be to have 40, 50? That'd be pretty big because gas station money is small bills. Okay, yeah. I mean, listen, it got to a point with the cash where I used to come home. And I used to get the fives and ones, and I used to give them to my wife, say, give this to your brothers and sisters because I have no room for them.
There's no place to put them. And I'd give her a couple of grandings and say, just give it out. We want to keep the 20s and the 10s. And it was, washing the money was an issue. I mean, once my wife went to the bank and I gave her, I don't know, thousands of dollars to deposit. And the banker said, why does your money always smell like gas? So my wife said, I'm not going to the bank anymore for you. And she didn't know I was doing anything wrong.
I never discussed it with her. I never told her anything. I said, hey, I'm in this business. I'm a wholesaler. We have a lot of cash. You know, you go to a gas station, they pay with cash. And they have as many credit cards as they have now. So. So it came to a point, I said, all right, I'll fix it. And I bought a refrigerator and I put baking soda in the refrigerator with the cash, and that took the smell out. And she said, I never seen anything like that before.
I said, well, you know, gas, nobody wants to smell gas. But I made everything legitimate out of it. I never told her a thing that was going on, never. Did you not, I always think when I read stories like this, that if I was in that moment, I would live in a permanent state of fear that I might go to jail. So I'd take, I don't know, a couple of million and bury it somewhere. You're nodding, is that what you did? Well, listen, I was resourceful in that regard.
But your plans don't always work out the way you want them to. I'll tell you one thing that really hurt me bad. I hired a lawyer that had just come out of the government to prosecution's office. As a matter of fact, he was almost on one of my cases, but he wasn't, so there was no conflict. But he just came out of the Eastern District of New York, which is Brooklyn, where my cases were, most of them. And so I hired him. And I said, John, I need one thing from you.
I want to know when I'm going to be arrested or locked up or indicted on this gasoline case, because this was after my partner became a snitch. And he said, I'll never forget. He said, don't worry about it. June of 86, that's when it's going to happen. You got time, right? And this was like the middle of 85. I said, great. I got married in July of 85, right? I said, great. I got time. I have my own plan. I was moving things around. But I was figuring I had seven, eight, nine months.
Well, I got indicted in December of that year and no bail. So they kind of derailed a lot of my plan and strategy because I got locked up six months earlier than I thought. And so that was hurtful. I can tell you that. What was your plan? I was moving a lot of money around, quite honestly. Moving a lot of money around at different places. Physical money or? Yeah. Yeah. And money that I had put in certain places, I was taking it out and I was putting it so I said, I never have to worry about anything again.
I'm going to have to sit on this cash. Because another thing happened, my partner and I had a bank in Austria and we were taking a federal tax money, nine cents, and we were just putting it in that bank and we weren't We opened up a bank account. He had half the number. It was a numbered account. He had half the number, I had half the number. Neither one of us knew the other half, right? We just did it. I always came up with that. I said, let's make sure we have no temptation.
It was more for him than for me, right? And we had about $33 million in that account. When he became a snitch, I got ahold of his son, Larry Jr. His name was Larry. And I said, tell your father, I'll fight him in court. Don't give up the money. It's all money. It's for you, your mother. Don't give up the money. Whatever happens, we'll worry about the court situation. Well, he testifies against me. He becomes an informant, goes to Holby. He never gives up the money, never gives up the account.
He testifies against me in a Giuliani case. I get acquitted. Jury didn't believe him, right? We destroyed him on the stand. So now the government in the Eastern District, the other side in Brooklyn, said, you're worthless. You couldn't get a conviction on Francis, you're worthless. We're throwing you out of the program. You're done. He gets scared. He says, wait a second. You know, there's more. He gives him the half of the number. The FBI goes to Austria.
True story. Goes to Austria and says, it's mafia money. We have half the account number. We want it. Austria says, I don't care what money it is. You come with the full account number or you're not getting anything. Tells the FBI, they didn't care. They wouldn't give it up. Austria, not Switzerland, Austria, right? So now, I get indicted, and they're negotiating the plea. Originally, they want to give me a $100 million fine and 25 years in prison.
That was where we were negotiating. So my lawyer comes to me, he says, you're never going to get the money. It's done. It's over. It's finished. He says, give me the account number. It'll help me negotiate the plea down. I give it to him. They negotiated the plea from 25 years and $100 million down to 10 years and $15 million with a $5 million forfeiture clause, right? So he did. It was very helpful in that regard. But we lost all that money. That was it.
You know, it was meaningful. It wasn't everything, but it was meaningful. And when he cooperated, they gave him back $2.5 million out of that. 33 million. So he profited a little bit out of it at least. Did you have anything buried in the ground? Yes. Physically buried in the ground? In a safe, yes. In a safe in the ground? Safes, I would say. Safes in the ground? Yes. Up until you were released? I'm, they were there, let's put it that way. No, because it's what any, I think anyone with a brain would do, but you just, if you don't know the timing of your, well, even if you didn't, I think if I was in that life, I'd live assuming that at some point I was probably gonna have to do some time for something.
So I'd bury it all over the place. I will tell you this, they believe that I have a lot of money stashed someplace to the point where they hired an investigator who wrote a book about it just to go and investigate and search And this guy went around the world to different accounts that he thought I might've had money in. He wrote a book about it and they couldn't identify it. They couldn't find it. But until today I get plagued with that. They say, we know you got it.
§04Transcript — part 4
100% we know you got it. We just wonder when you're gonna go get it. Um, I don't, I sound respond to silly stuff like that. You know? Do you think you're being followed and watched? No. No? I mean, I think, let's put it this way. At any moment, you can get in their crosshairs again, and who knows? But I don't think they're worried or concerned about me at this moment. It's not to say that that could not be a concern of theirs again, but I don't worry about that.
But you were just saying there that you said they are just waiting for me to go and get it. They think they're just waiting for you to go and get it. Oh yeah, retired agents have told me that. Agents, okay, so not the mafia agents. Yeah, well, they absolutely think I do. There's no question about that I know. Yeah, there's guys that have told me that. Told you what? We know you have it. When are you going to go get it? When they say go get it, do they mean New York?
No, wherever the money's buried or wherever it is, when is it going to appear? I hear that. I've heard that consistently over the years. Is it buried? Let's put it this way. If it's there, who knows if I'll ever get to use it again, but we'll have to see. You went to prison, though. You're in solitary confinement for a while while you're in prison. I can't imagine. I can't imagine. One of my recurring nightmares is going to prison. I think it's just like my deepest, darkest fear.
Really? Yeah, it is. It's specifically going to prison for something I didn't do is one of my recurring nightmares that will happen every couple of months. And it's just the worst feeling in the world. That is a nightmare. I mean, to go for something you didn't do, for sure. Yeah, prison is, listen, it's like anything else. You're going to know how to navigate the system as best you can. And, you know, my father taught me again. He said, Mike, I'm going to tell you three things that are going to help you when you go to prison because you're going to go one day.
He said three words that are going to go a long way. Please, thank you, excuse me. And he said the reason for that, he said, all these guys in prison that never got respect on the street, they want it all in there. They want to show their people, you know, that they're tough guys or whatever. You bunk into somebody, excuse me. You want to cut somebody on the line, go to eat, whatever. I said, do you mind, you know, excuse me, please, if I can come in front of you.
Don't ever just get in front of them, you know. And somebody hands you, hey, thank you. Thank you very much. Be cordial. And it really helped because I saw guys try to throw their weight around. John Gotti tried to throw his weight around. Don't work in there. Guys are doing life in prison. They don't care who you are. What do they got to lose? But I never had a problem. Never had a problem in prison. I treated people that way. And yeah, I did spend 29 months and seven days in solitary.
And honestly, not easy. That was rough. I saw a lot of guys that not do well, and I don't demean them for it. Lights went out sometimes, you heard a lot of things. I seen a lot of things in there. The guys couldn't deal with it for extended times. It's rough. I'm dead set against it for young people. I think it's a form of torture. It really hurt them emotionally, and I'm against it. Unless somebody's such a danger to themselves or a danger to others, I'm dead set against it.
But I got through it. Why were you sent to solitary? They were upset with me. You know, when I wouldn't cooperate to the level that they wanted me to, especially in one big case that they tried to get me to take the stand against a friend of mine, and I refused. And within a few days, I was back on a parole violation. They locked me up and sent me right to the hole. And I was in solitary the whole time, just getting even with me. 29 months and seven days?
And seven days, yeah. In a row or... Yes, I did 11 months in one place, and then they moved me. That took about two days, and then put me in another place, and I finished it up. When you say that you had grown men in there breaking, what do you mean? You know, banging heads against the bars, and just some other disgusting things you don't want to hear. I mean, you know... damaging themselves, you know, hurting themselves just to get out of the hole.
You know, I'd see guys that did things to themselves to get out of the hole in jail and get sent to the prison so they didn't have to stay in that environment anymore. It was just bad. That's nightmare stuff. It really is. You're quite uncomfortable talking about it, aren't you? Yeah, because, you know, it's kind of demeaning to, and I'm not trying to come off that way. I'm not saying, well, I was a tough guy. I was able to handle it. I was, by the grace of God, I was able to handle it.
I had my days and my nights where, you know, you're saying, God, it's one long day. It never ends, you know? And, I mean, I lost a lot of weight in there. I was down to, I'm like 190-something now. I was 166 when I got out of there. because I wouldn't eat, you know, the food that they gave us. I got tomain poisoning a couple of times. I said, hey, give me cereal, give me bananas, and give me cup of soup. That's all I want to eat. I don't want to eat anything else.
And so I lived on that for quite some time. And, you know, I don't want to make it sound that, I mean, it wasn't, you know, some of these places where... You know, you don't have a toilet or anything else. I mean, I'm sure there's places around the world that are a lot worse, could be, but it's just the solitary. It wasn't so much the conditions. You know what I mean? We had a sink, we had a toilet, you had your bed with a little mattress. So that was, it was just being solitary.
That's hard. Did you find yourself losing your own mind in there? And whatever that might mean? No, Steve, honestly, I think I have a fairly strong constitution. There's something in me, and that's God-given. I can't say, I don't know how. Do you acquire something like that, or it's just who you are? I don't know. But I was able to deal with it. I mean, I had my bad nights in there. Fortunately, I had a Sony Walkman. Music was great. You have no idea.
Music was so soothing. I remember one Christmas Eve, I had just gotten off the phone with my wife, and it was devastating. The whole family was there, and it was just, and I just put my Walkman on, and it just lifted me out of there for a minute. Just the music, you forget stuff. You know, and, you know, I got into my Bible during that time, and I was listening to a pastor that I had not known and never met him. His name was Greg Laurie. He's Harvest Crusade, huge pastor here now, very dear friend of mine now.
But his words were so uplifting. I look forward to listening to him every morning. He had morning radio shows. And so things like that meant a lot. And then getting to a phone. Everything is about the phone and having, contact with your family. So the thing that worried me, when my dad went away at that time, he got one three minute phone call a month and one visit a month, one eight hour visit. That was it. So he lost touch with the family and him and my mother drifted apart.
My sister hardly knew him. You know, you just can't. If you're not in touch with people, it just naturally happens. So when I went away, my fear was that was going to happen to me and my wife. So I did all I wanted. I told her, you want to lock me up? Lock me up. Just give me my phone calls and give me my visits. I don't care what you do. I'll take everything else. But don't take my phone call. Don't take my visit. I'm not going to do anything that will cause you to do that.
So don't do it. That's all I cared about. because I wanted to maintain a relationship with my wife. And she stuck by you? She did. She did. Eight years that I did, she stuck by me. And she was young. She had a great mom, good Christian mom who held her up. Our church at that time, Westwood Hills Christian Church. They rallied around my wife and me and my kids. We had little babies back then. And she stood up. When I went to, I did five years. I was home for 13 months, very difficult 13 months.
It was a contract on my life. People wanted to kill me and government was all over me to become a witness. And I had a very tough time. I violated my parole. And when I went in, the feds told her, you're never going to see your husband free again. We're indicted him on another case. We violated his parole. He's done. You may as well pack it up. And she had a breakdown on me at that point. She probably couldn't see me for about six or seven weeks.
She didn't come to visit. Can you imagine what life would have been like in solitary if she had decided that it was all too much for her? I would have been bitter and resentful. I don't think I would have come out of there the same. I really don't. Because she meant that much to me, still does, but because I did everything for her basically. I mean, she was the reason why I left that life. Even though I knew it was a bad life, I wouldn't have left.
I was so indoctrinated. Steve, when I walked into that room that night, I thought I was gonna die. And yet I walked into the room. Wow, what a hero. It wasn't heroic. It was robotic. I was so much a part of that life. I'd seen so much. I said, well, it's my turn. It's my turn. It wasn't heroic. I was scared out of my mind. My knees were weak. My heart was thumping out of my chest. You know, and I still didn't want them to realize that I was that scared, but I was really scared.
Which room? The room you found out? The night they walked me. I told you they walked me into that room, and I didn't know if I was going to, you know, that's one of the horrors of that life. The night my dad betrayed me. Your dad, you walked into that room that night with the bosses there and a lot of other people there and your dad there. He wasn't there. Oh, he wasn't. He had left already. He had left already. Yes, they talked to us separately.
And when they had a conversation with him, had they told him that you were gonna, there was gonna be a contract on you? They didn't tell him that, but they were fishing to find out if there was a reason for it to happen. In other words, if, I believe, now this is my perception of that night, there was two reasons they walked me in, one of two. Number one, trying to scare me to let me know, you may be making all this money, you may have this big crew, that article came out in the paper, but we're the boss.
You try to make a move, you're gonna die. That's what I think, it was either that, or they really believed I was doing something wrong, and they were gonna try to take over the business. Now, again, remember, one of the safeguards, I never let him meet that guy. And I never let him, my crew was my crew. I didn't bring them around. They were my guys. And when we fell, nobody, no maid guy fell with us. It was only my crew. So I protected them in that way.
But in another way, I was safeguarding my business. So were they gonna look for an excuse that night to take me out? Very possibly. And you think your dad might have been aware of that? Yes. In a way, yes, because, and again, I've struggled with this too. Okay, Dad, you betrayed me that night. You threw me under the bus. He didn't say, well, my son did this wrong. My son did that. He didn't do that. He just said, I don't know. I can't tell you. I don't know.
And that was damaging. He didn't stand up for me. How'd you know he didn't? Jimmy told me. And I approached my father two years later. He denied it. I said, Dad, I know you did it. It was confirmed. I know you did that. I know what you did, but it's okay. I love you. It's all right. I get it. I understand the life. I get it. What did Jimmy tell you? He told me your father threw you under the bus. He didn't help you one bit. It's his exact words.
He didn't help you one bit. He hurt you in there tonight. And you know, I was devastating. Have you forgiven him for that? Absolutely forgave him. You know, something happens to you in that life, you know? It's like what's right is wrong, what's wrong is right. You justify certain things. But I understood because that night, I mean, what kind of insanity to walk into a room when you think you're going to get killed or you think you might get killed?
That's your perception, whether it's real or not. That's your perception. People say, why didn't you cut and run? Robotic. Okay, I was so consumed by the life. So, this was me. Okay, I'm gonna die tonight. Scared, of course I was scared. No, I'm not ashamed of it. Not at all. I mean, I knew that door opened, I almost fainted probably, I don't know. Cause I know it had set up, you know, I walk in, it would have been over quick. So when that door was gonna open, I almost fainted.
But I can tell you this, what I believe now as a person of faith, I strongly believe this, that the way my life has turned out now, two things, that bond between my dad and me had to be broken. It had to be broken. And I had to realize in my life that I could face death if I had to. Because when I walked away from that life, I didn't know I was gonna walk away, but when I walked away from that life, You know, contract on my life, my boss was very upset with me.
He took it very personal. He was a tough guy. He was an old-time, real tough guy. And he took it very personal. You know, walk away. You don't walk away from this life. We're not allowed to do that. My dad disowned me for a number of years until we patched it up when they realized I wasn't going to be testifying against everybody because they thought I was. Okay, this is what he's going to do. I wasn't interested in that. They thought I was gonna go into the witness protection program and start hurting guys left and right.
That's not what I was gonna do. Never would have done that. Not in a chance. But they didn't know, because when guys walk away, that's what they do. Do you think your dad loved you? I know he loved me, no question. I'll tell you what the problem with my dad was. His legend in that life meant everything to him. I just can't square the fact that he would allow you to talk into that room and not defend you with the risk of you dying. And at the same time, he loves you.
I like to think that maybe he didn't perceive it that way. There was some other things playing. You know, this is like, it was like, it's Shakespearean in a way. My mother who I loved, very difficult woman. I can tell you this, she had her issues for whatever reason, but you know, I think my mother liked to be my father's wife for a time. I mean, she got a lot of attention, right? When I became, prominent in that life, a lot of the tension was not on her.
And I think she said some things to my dad, you know, that kind of maybe got in his head a little bit about me. Maybe, I hate to say this, it doesn't sound right. And I don't want people to perceive that. Maybe there was a little jealousy or envy there. I don't know, Steve, you know, I've never talked like this before. And I don't like to do it because it puts my father in a very bad light. But sometimes you can play on somebody's mind so much, you know, especially a woman that he loved.
And I know my mother loved me, too. Figure this one out. There's no question my mother loved me. But I can't explain what dynamic they had going on within them. I don't know. But maybe there was some resentment there a little bit, even though face to face, I never experienced that with him. But then this happens in that room. I don't know. I don't think if my dad thought I was going to get killed that night, I don't think he would have gone through it.
Maybe he was in on it. You know, I don't know. Maybe he said, hey, let's flush my son out. I don't know. I don't know. And Jimmy wouldn't have known that, the guy that drove me, so I don't know. How do you square all of this? Because one of the things I think all human beings need, regardless of how tough they are, is love. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And listen, I got, my relationship with my dad was never the same, especially after I walked away.
You know, when we didn't speak for about 10 years. And then when I got out of prison and he was on parole and we realized, he realized I wasn't hurting anybody. He said, I want to see you. Called me. I said, okay. He said, I'm going to meet you in such and such a place. I said, nope, I'll meet you at the house, your house. Not going anywhere to meet you, Dad. Almost little mistrust there, I'm going to be honest. You know? And so I go to see him at, I go to his house, 5.30 in the morning, because I was on parole, had a record at that time.
I didn't know if I was allowed to see him, you know, on the violation. He was on parole, I was on parole. Why did you go to his house? I knew my mom was there and I'm in his house. I don't have to worry about it. I wasn't going to go anywhere where somebody else could have been there, you know. And I knew my dad would never do anything in his house. That's my feelings. So I seen him, it was 5.30 in the morning, opened the door and he's standing there, arms folded, and he looks at me and his first words to me, he said, if you would've listened to me, you would've been the boss of the Colombo family.
I looked at him, I said, dad, are you in the twilight zone or something? I said, I serve a different master right now. And he looked at me and he said, do you mean this Bible stuff is for real with you? Cause I had turned Christian at that point. I said, yeah, it's for real. He said, OK, let's talk. And that's kind of how we broke the ice. And we spent three hours talking and going over a lot of the stuff that happened. And some of the anger I had in me, I expressed to him.
And some of the things he said, what he said to me. And I said to him, if you're on call, I said, I'm not going back in that life. I said, Dad, you see, I wasn't here to hurt anybody. But if there's things that you don't want to express, just don't tell me. I don't want to hear it. I mean, it was a very open, hard conversation that he and I had, but it was good because we came to an agreement in terms after that. You know, one of the things, Steve, about the mob genre on social media is like people talk and they say things.
They don't know what really went on with me and my dad and our personal conversations and all of that. And, you know, well, you know, you never want to see your dad. When your dad died, you didn't go to his funeral. And I didn't go. And I didn't go for a reason, because number one, I knew who else was going to be there. I'm not going to go there and be the center of attention or maybe have something happen at my dad's funeral. If somebody wants to make remarks for me and then we're going to it's going to be a bad time in there.
I've respected my dad enough to do that. I went to visit him privately. I didn't need to make a show or display out of it. And actually, people says to me, Michael, you're better off not going. You know, you don't. Who knows if there's going to be a scene? Because I'd walked away from that life. Other guys might have been friends of my father, might have showed up. And it could have been confrontational. I don't need to do that. I'm not looking to put on a show.
But guys make remarks, oh, you didn't care about your father. They don't know. They don't know when I'm personally between us. None of their business. This is probably the most open conversation I've ever had about it publicly. Maybe at all. I don't talk about it. What are the stories that you're unable to tell about your time in the mafia? You don't have to tell me the stories because you're unable to tell them, but what are the nature of those stories that you're unable to tell?
Because you do a lot of interviews these days. You're on podcasts, you speak now. You know, I mean, look, it's like I said, there was a lot of guys that I knew that were gone. You know, just not there. And, you know, I'll give you an example. There was a guy that was around my dad, then became around me, I was his captain, and he got involved in a drug deal with somebody that was higher up. So he came to me, I was at a funeral parlor, and he came to me and he told me what happened.
And I got mad. I said, Tony, what is the matter with you? You've been around all this. How the heck did you let this happen? I said, don't worry about it. I'm going to straighten it out. And we were at a funeral of a guy that got killed. And he said to me, you couldn't straight that one out, Michael. I said, don't compare the two situations. This was something else. I said, don't worry about it. I'm going to handle it. He said, Mike, they're not going to walk me into a room.
I said, it's not going to happen. Relax. I promise you I'll take care of you. You've been around. You're a good soldier. You've been around a long time. You got a lot of respect. Don't worry about it. You made a stupid mistake. We'll clear it. I get on my plane, I go to Florida. My movie was being made down there. And I go to Florida, I get off the plane. One of my guys calls me up, he says, Mike, you're not gonna believe this. I said, what? He said, Tony went into a phone booth and blew his brains out.
He was an old timer, so afraid, he said, I'm not going out, nobody's gonna take me out, walk me into a room. And he did it himself. So you see things like that in that life and it's like, you know, I don't know what to say, you know? How are you? I'm good. You know, if your wife is in a room over there, in the green room over there in another building, if I were to ask her, if I were to say, what are the type of things that Michael struggles with?
What would she say to me? Well, because if you ask my girlfriend that you'd get a laundry list. So I imagine your wife would say, you know, what do I struggle with in the family? You know, it's funny. I'm on the street. I got all this stuff going for me in my house. I'm just dad. You know, sometimes I get mad. My kids take advantage of me. I said, I go out of my way for all of you. You don't do anything in return. You know, you guys don't appreciate anything.
I guess I still have that. You know, I'm a pretty giving guy, Steve. You know, I give you everything I can possibly give you. Just, you don't have to give it back to me. Just treat me right. Respect is a lot. If I feel I'm being disrespected, I don't like it. Even tell my wife sometimes. She says, he struggles with, you know, the littlest thing. He thinks it's disrespect. Can't help it. That's my nature. You know, I don't like that. I have a guy now, you know, trying to call him up.
He doesn't call you back for two, three days. That's disrespectful. You know, I don't like stuff like that. I struggle with it because I see a lot of it around. You know, I don't know what else. When people come to you and they ask, because you've been a speaker for some time now, about two decades, almost? 25 years. 25 years. What are the key things that people approach you to speak about based on your experience? Well, it's a number. I mean, look, everybody wants to hear the mob story.
There's intrigue with the mob story worldwide. And I never realized that when I was in the life until I became what I am now and all over the world. People are fascinated with more than any other criminal group. They're fascinated with the mafia. Media, why, of course, all the great movies, you know, Al Capone, John Gotti, bigger than life, all that stuff. So there's a fascination with this life. United Kingdom, you know, two tours there. People, they don't, because you don't have a mafia there.
You're lucky in that regard. But so people want to hear that. But then they want to hear how that life has impacted me, how I've been able to get out of it and still, you know, succeed in a way. And their perception, I'm succeeding. And, but you'll be surprised with this, Steve. Whenever I open it up for a Q&A, which is often, you think you're gonna hear all the mob questions. You don't. You know what it is? Well, how did your wife react with you after being away so long?
How did you patch that up? How did your kids react to you? How were you able to adjust? You know, did you feel you were doing the right thing? How is your struggles? People, and I'm saying to myself, these people might be going through these same things in a different way. And wow, I came out of a tough situation. How did I make it? Can they apply it to their own lives? People are struggling. You know, I see it more and more and more. If I wanted to spend my time mentoring to people all the time, I would be overloaded.
Just from social media and emails and texts that I get. And it's a good feeling, don't get me wrong, that people see something in me that maybe can be helpful to them. And I pursue it as much as I can. As a matter of fact, I'm starting a platform now. I think it's come to that point. God has put it in my heart that maybe it's time to offer these people something more than just a conversation. And so we are starting a platform where we can create this kind of family or community where not only I can be of assistance, but my team can.
And people can start to, you know, help one another. I think we need that more than ever. We'll link that below if you are able to send me a link to that so people can check it out. I understand why... There is intrigue. I think a lot of people will be intrigued because the Mafia, you know, as I said to you before we start recording, I haven't watched Mafia movies. I don't really know anything about the Mafia. I've been enlightened today. It's quite fascinating.
I feel like I'm going to go watch all of the movies. But the thing that I found so compelling is just what I can learn from it. Because I think everybody that's lived a... anomalous life where they've done something different and they've walked a different path has something different that they've learned that is also a fundamental truth i.e regardless of what you've done um whatever divergent path you've taken you've learned a bunch of fundamental principles of how the world works how people work how to navigate how to survive um And some of those principles are super applicable to my day-to-day life.
I've learned so much about even business, the concept of having a sit down. You know, in business, there's not enough candor, there's not enough honesty, there's not enough frank conversations in that regard. There's lots of emails, brainstorms, this person's on annual leave, we're gonna talk on blah, blah, blah, but there's not enough of that frankness. So those are the things that I really wanted to understand. If you've got any more of those for me in terms of how, because you're a businessman now and you're an entrepreneur in this season of life.
And some of those principles that you learned from the mafia days must still be applicable. Absolutely. Well, I'll tell you this, and I'm sure this is a principle that you follow. You don't look like a micromanager to me. Well, I don't know. Are you? Well, I don't know. I don't know. Do you know what the honest answer is? The honest answer is, I think, and you can ask my team privately. Actually, Jack, come over here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, because I genuinely want to know the truth.
I want to know the actual truth. Okay, Jack, 100% honesty. I think in some areas you can be a micromanager, but I think in other areas you're not. And then I think when you need to be, you are, Yeah, I think I am and I'm not. And it's a real dichotomy, i.e., and again, this is just my opinion. I don't know if I've got the self-awareness for this to be accurate, but I think that I'm obsessed with the smallest details of a system. And I like to understand the smallest details of a system to some degree.
And I think when I get to a point where I realize, honestly, this is what it is, that Whoever's running that system can do it way better than me. I resigned to it. And I don't feel like I'm at all necessary. And so this, for example, with this production, there's nothing I can tell Jack about cameras. Right. There's zero. I don't know anything about these bloody cameras or about what he does in post-production. You want to know anything about it?
No. Good. Because I trust him. But there are instances with other team members or within other businesses that I run where I don't have the trust yet. And I've always said to my team, and people don't like this, but you can't fake trust. Trust for me is evidence. So like, how do I describe this? If I told you to believe that I was the spaghetti monster, No matter how much you wanted to will that in. I said, I'm going to give you a million dollars in cash right now if you believe I'm the spaghetti monster.
All of the evidence you have says that I'm a human being. I've got two arms, two legs. So all you could do is lie. Right. But you wouldn't actually believe it. And I think trust is the same. Like, it's evidence you do or don't have. I have so much evidence that Jack doesn't need to be told anything about production because he's, you know... So that's kind of how my system works. So on one end, I think a lot of my team, and I've heard them say in interviews before that I've given them immense freedom in certain areas.
§05Transcript — part 5
And then in other elements, I think I can be maniacal about detail and be in the weeds. Well, my motto, and it's worked for me most of the time when I'm really paying attention. I'm older now. I used to be a little bit different when I was younger. I was more hands-on, but I came to a conclusion early on, you can't micromanage because when you micromanage, you're taking yourself away from your best talent and the thing that you can contribute to the best in your business.
And so I always said, do what I do best, delegate the rest. And then hopefully you have the talent to motivate the people and get the most out of them. So it's a double sword, double-edged sword. Do what you do best. Delegate the rest, but motivate them to the point where you're getting the most out of them. That's critical. That's critical because you can't do everything well. You know that. No, I know. Yeah. You know, and it's, you know, and I always say this too.
I tell people, get your personal life in order because normally your business is going to be a reflection of your personal life in some way, shape, or form. And you can't do both. You can't do one well and do the other not good because they're going to affect one another. So have your personal life in order. Your business will be a reflection of your personal life. And if you can do that, Do what you do best, delegate the rest, give your personal life an order, your business will be a reflection of that and you're gonna do okay.
I believe it. Michael, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're gonna be leaving it for. And the question that's been left for you is, what is one event conversation or experience that was your aha light bulb that influenced or changed your life? Ooh. Look, I think the, unfortunately, you know, these are defining moments. And in the course of my life, there's been more than one, but really two, I'll boil it down to two.
One was with my dad. And during that time when he proposed me into the life. And the second one was with the pastor of the church that married me, that I hardly knew. And when we were gonna get married in that church, I was with him and my wife. And for some reason, and I was still a mob guy at that point, I told my wife, I said, I want you to leave. I wanna speak to Dr. Taylor, Dr. Myron Taylor he was. And he was a pastor. And I sat down with him and I said, doc, You don't know my background.
I said, but I've done a lot of bad things in my life. I was part of a rough lifestyle. My wife is telling me, you know, I could be forgiven for these things. Is it possible? And he really opened up to me and it was a very inspiring conversation because I really, he's such a good man. I mean, I got to know and love this man. He's passed on now, but he married us, but, um, And he was the one that filled me with some hope that, yeah, well, maybe I can turn this around.
Because up until then, I didn't know. You know, my wife was a Christian, and I was marrying her, and I respected her for her faith, but I wasn't buying into it. You know, okay, you know. And my mother-in-law, a strong woman of faith, but I wasn't buying into it myself. Because I said, they don't know who I am. And then I had this conversation, and it planted the seeds of... to say, you know what, maybe there is something else. Maybe I can undo some of the things, not undo them, but change some of the things, change the path of my life.
And it was a short time, maybe half hour the most, but meaningful. And that's ultimately where your life began to change. Yeah. You found God. Yes. Or he found me, one of the two, I don't know. What is your closing message, Michael? You know, it's a message, hopefully, of encouragement and hope, you know, to people that are struggling and facing challenges in their life. And, you know, you don't always be defeated by your past. And you're not always defined by your past.
You can change that in many cases, not in every case, but in many cases. And I think I'm an example of that. And it's been inspiring to people, and it's extremely rewarding to me to know that I've been able to turn it around to a point where it's been a positive influence on people. So I like people to know that. That's what motivates me to continue speaking. It's not about, you know, it's about the way people react. And you see that there's hope.
It's the emails, the texts, the messages. Hey, you've inspired me. You know, you've given me hope. And I want people to know that. You know, you're not defined by your past all the time and you can make changes in your life. I mean, that's certainly one of the very inspiring messages you leave me with is just this idea that in all of our lives, it's going to come in seasons. And we're able and we have the permission to change with the seasons. We don't have to be fixed to an identity or to a past or to an old job title or to a group of people we used to associate with at any time we can make the decision, although it's not going to be fast, to...
become who we always were, I guess. You know, I started this conversation asking you who you were. Yeah. I kind of suspect you're the same person you always were fundamentally, but circumstances changed. Beliefs have changed. Who you're accountable to has changed. Yes. Your values have become refined, you know, and all these things. But at the end of the day, it's the same human being, but with a different sense of principles and purpose in their life.
And I look back at my life and it's the same. I haven't always been great. I haven't always done good things. There were tough parts where I did things that I'm not proud of and probably wouldn't say on camera too much, but... I think that's really important. I think the best thing for humanity is that people have a chance to evolve and can be forgiven and move on. And they're judged for how they show up today. Your book is incredibly inspiring.
It's also incredibly fascinating. Mafia Democracy by yourself. And the foreword on here is from Rudy Giuliani, which I thought was hilarious because I know that he was an enemy for much of your career. And he was trying to destroy you, give you a 100 year sentence. He was instrumental in imposing some of the laws that shut down the mafia's heyday as well. And thank you for your honesty, because although I know it's not always easy to recount certain memories from certain chapters of our life, in doing so you enlighten us to the true nature of what it is to be a human, and the complexities of what it is to be a human, and all the forces that are in play, and all of us are all the time.
And that's inspiring, but it's also liberating, because even though we've walked very different lives, you know, there's so many similarities and so many lessons that I've learned from you. So thank you, Michael, I appreciate you. I appreciate that. And I want to tell you, I'm very inspired by you. You know, like I said, I'm very impressed when somebody at a young age has it together, works hard and reaches the level that you've reached at a young age.
I mean, it's very inspiring. We need... You know, I hope you continue to be, you know, an example of somebody that can just really put their head to the grind and make it. And I've read up on you, and I know that's what you've done. You've created a great, great business here. And just keep going. Thank you, Michael. Okay. You got it.