Beth Rigby interviews... former mafia member Michael Franzese

Michael, thanks for coming on the show, let's start with your background. You were once a

mafia

boss in 1986. You were actually listed as one of the 50 most powerful and richest

mafia

bosses in the world. There is a mystique in a way around the mafia. a kind of glamor and courage are the performances that we see, kind of like living it up, it depends on what you're watching and if you're watching a movie like Goodfellas, uh, Donnie Brasco, uh, even Bronx Tale, uh, pretty authentic, you know to the characters. they're well portrayed and, you know, I was mentioned in Goodfellas and Donnie Brasco.

I knew all those guys and I thought they did a great job. Now some of the movies you see don't, but those three, I would say they are. It's pretty accurate when I watch Gamora, which is set in Italy, it's set in the slums of Naples, it really is gritty, messy, brutal and it's kind of a horrible life, in fact watching it is full of pathos, it was actually like that quite. of the time, as if it were routine, in America there are a lot of misconceptions, you know, that people take from the media and sometimes from entertainment, the things that they see, there is a gritty part of life, obviously , it is very sandy. street uh, but there's also integrity and respect for life and I think we see that in some of those movies we saw that in the Godfather even though it was fictional and that's what I experienced, you know, there's a high standard to that life.

In many ways there is a code of conduct, yes, code of conduct, respect is a problem, discipline is a problem, you know, being respectful to women, believe it or not, you know your wives, your families, everything. It is part of that life and there are serious consequences. if you don't pay attention on your website you serve yourself that you are the only high ranking official of a major crime family who ever made it out alive without protective custody and you are still here and very successful yeah how did you do it ? You do it well, you understand that it's not something I portrayed myself as but you don't walk away from that life, I mean you just can't take that oath, it's a lifelong oath and usually when people leave. the life they join the government enters a witness protection program and starts cooperating I didn't do that I was just determined to stay away because I knew it was a bad life and I wanted to preserve my family life after you left, right?

TRUE? You must have been afraid if you were constantly looking over your shoulder thinking someone was going to kill me when I walk down the street here I look over my shoulder it's just instinct you know from being a part of that life for so many years I didn't live in fear because I felt pretty confident that I could handle it so I didn't live in fear but I was cautious. I was also wondering if your father stayed in the mafia. He died when we talked about it when he was. 103. Did he offer you protection? Do you think that helped you?

The fact that your father was still active. You know yes and no. Listen when I walked away from that life. The authorities, the FBI, went into prison. I was in prison at the time and they said. There is a contract in your life and your father has accepted that is what they told me, you know, I don't think they understood that I knew life so well and I understood that my father couldn't speak for me at that time. period because he didn't know what he was going to do if he accepted it, it was just to protect himself because when you bring someone into that life and that person becomes an informant or cooperator, you yourself could get in trouble for introducing him. him to life how did you feel when you found out that your father had accepted the contract on your life?

You yourself are a father I understood what he was doing now I want to make it clear I mean, I don't think my father would ever put a bullet in my head. I don't think he did what he had to do just to preserve himself at that moment, but he hurt me a little bit. Yes, I have to admit I did, but I understood what it was. doing and I love my dad, I mean there was nothing he was going to do to take away the fear and the love I had for him and the love he had for me, I understood that, but you know life on the street is different and you have "You have to be careful because you know that one wrong move could be very serious, so in some ways the mafia family becomes more important than your nuclear family, your real family, not for me, but re

member

this feeling of Yes, when you take that oath, you are told directly if your mother is dying and sick and you are at her bedside and we call you to serve, leave your mother, you come and serve us from now on, we are the number one in your life before anything else, so you have that stuck in your head, it's number one, my father, unfortunately, lived by that oath of great suffering for his family, I mean, I understand I had a sister who died at at the age of 27 because of drugs, my brother was a drug addict all his life.

I became an informant and testified against my father in his case. My younger brother. My little brother. What happened?. I put my ba. My father went back to jail. My brother is now on the street. He was in witness protection for many years and I was not willing. To do that to my family, Michael, can you? You have turned a made man into a

member

. You were a companion. You were inducted in 1975. So 48 years ago, that would be 47 years ago. Can you just explain to the viewers what that is? What's that? How was that night? What's happening?

They cut off your finger right here. A few drops of blood on the floor. I put my hands together. They took a photo of a Catholic altar. it burned quickly it was merely symbolic and said tonight

michael

francis you are born again in a new life in prima austria violate what you know about this life betray your brothers and you will die and burn in hell as the saint burns in your hands. You accept, yes, I accept, that is the oath. Well, let's go to London, here in Tottenham. You came here to talk about the tour, but you also know that in London there is a big problem with knife crime in places like Tottenham and in many districts of the capital. um there's an initiative here, gloves up, knives down, that would have persuaded you years ago in Brooklyn, do you think so, these kids on the street, I spent a lot of time in prison with kids coming into the system. 21 22 years old, horrible origins, you know, you understand. involved in gang drugs all the time and I used to minister to them and counsel them at that time before I was a Christian I was still a street kid at that time I said what are you doing with your life you know, I tell them you know keep hanging out in these environments , get used to this because this is going to be your home, you're going to be here for the rest of your life and you're going to drive your family crazy if you have one, so, um, but yeah.

I need these organizations because look, you can't just tell a child to get away from that life and send them back to the neighborhood, it's dangerous. What struck me when you talk about your previous life is that the mafia is like an alternative society, it has a family. It has social ties, intergenerational respect, it has a structure, it has a contact code of conduct, it is motivated by a clear objective which is the success and protection of the members, when I think about organized crime gangs in London, they may be less structured, but they are also structured for children. who get involved in them are a family, it provides them with structure.

Do you see parallels between the two lives? no they have no real structure and discipline they're not really organized they're a bunch of street drugs trying to steal for a living and that's what they teach it's different gang life is different than the mafia causing the arsenal we were organized crime we had our crime directed in a certain direction we weren't going to rob people's houses and you know, stab people in the street and things like that, we didn't do that, my targets are the federal government, the big banks, the insurance companies, they got enough money, I thought, hey, if we take a few dollars, they'll survive, we're not robbing people on the street, it's a completely different thing.

That's not the Michael family that you've talked about, we've talked a little bit about knife crime and inner city crime and you go and talk to kids in schools, but you're also here because you have a tour. where you're going to talk about your life, yeah, on the 2nd of july at the grosvenor hotel, we start the tour right here in london, where we should start and we're going to 25 cities across the uk and it's going to be fantastic. I'm very excited, you're going to hear about mafia life. It's part of life. I know what people want to hear.

I've been telling stories but I feel like I can say things here in the UK that I've never said before and I want to give people a real insight into that life. You have to understand something about what I was with. John Gotti. Fat Tony Salerno from Chin. Uhh. Joe Colombo. These were all my fellow associates. My father. Sonny Francis. The oldest living gangster in the world. so I have a lot to talk about, a lot to tell, I want to give people a real insight into that life and you will hear it all over the UK and it will be funny, very funny, okay Michael Francis, thank you very much.

Thank you very much for coming to the program.