The Megyn Kelly Show - What Life is Really Like in the Mob, and Finding God in Prison, with Former Mafia Member Michael Franzese | Ep. 674

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Megyn Kelly is joined by Michael Franzese, former top Mafia member and host of the YouTube show "Sitdown with Michael Franzese," to talk about growing up in a Mafia family, deciding to join the "life" himself, his relationship with his family then and now, how Rudy Giuliani put him in prison in a racketeering case, his evolving relationship with the former NYC mayor, how they became closer after the prosecution, planning his exit from the Mafia, Donnie Brasco, Goodfellas, and The Godfather and how similar they are to the actual Mafia, the connections between Hollywood actors and mobsters, how he found God after being handed a Bible by a prison guard, lessons he's learned and the way he lives his life now, talking to the police vs. his time in prison, how he got involved in making films, connection between Mafia and Hollywood, life lessons and his redemption story, and more.More from Franzese: https://www.youtube.com/@michaelfranzese Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today we bring you the fascinating story of a man born into the mob. Imagine that. Michael Franzese grew up as the son of the notorious underboss of New York's Colombo crime family and became extremely successful himself. He's been called one of the biggest mob earners since Al Capone, but he has since left his life of crime behind and is now a bestselling author, speaker, and host of Sit Down with Michael Franzese on YouTube. Michael, welcome to the show. Nice to meet you. Well, nice to meet you, Megan. Thanks for having me.

Oh, what a fascinating story you have. So let's start at the beginning. You were born into the mob. Describe your dad and how he came into it. Well, my dad and my father actually immigrated here in about 1902, 1903. And he was a prominent guy in Brooklyn. Even though he wasn't a member, he certainly knew a lot of the guys. My dad, my grandfather had a bar and a bakery and a lot of guys would come in and associate with him. And my dad started to meet them through my grandfather. And my grandfather was known as Tootie the Lion. So he was a pretty substantial guy. And my father got drawn in,

you know. He was just that type of guy, had that type of spirit. And they saw something in him before you know it. You know, he became a made man and eventually rose up in the ranks to captain and an underboss of the Colombo family. And, you know, Megan, I grew up a lot differently than most people. I grew up, you know, hating the government, hating the police, because my dad was constantly under surveillance. We had law enforcement around us all the time. And I always viewed them as harassing my dad.

So, you know, I kind of grew up, you know, from the time I can remember, you know, in that lifestyle. So how, talk us through like your earliest memories of your dad and like, okay, my childhood, my family is not like all the others. Well, you know, my very earliest memory, and it's amazing how you can remember some things that just really impact you. I was probably four years old, and my dad had, we were in Brooklyn at the time, but But then one day he comes into my grandmother's house. He hadn't shaved in a while. His right hand guy, a guy by the name of Joey, who is, again, my dad's right hand guy, was out on the porch. And I can see through the window. And he was kind of like standing guard.

My dad comes in, hugs my mom. And, you know, they talk for a few minutes. Then he comes over to me. I was sitting on the steps. And he gives me a big hug. And, you know, I love for a few minutes, then he comes over to me, I was sitting on the steps. And he gives me a big hug. And you know, I love you, son, and all of that. And I didn't know what was going on. And then he left. Well, what I realized later on, it was that was during the Profaci Gallo war. And they had taken to the mattresses, as the saying goes, and my dad wasn't around for a while. That's the earliest memory that I have. And it just continued there because my dad was so high profile. He was always

under investigation, always a major target of law enforcement. I always say he was kind of like the John Gotti of his day. So, you know, it's my memory, you know, going way back. And he was always in the media. So, you know, I had issues at school because my dad, you know, guys was, Hey, you got a mafia dad. You know, I would fight because I love my dad. I didn't care what anybody said. And so it was, you know, from my earliest days that I remember that. And did you, did he ever like tell you, you know, I'm in this thing called the mafia. This is what I do. You can't talk about it. How did you come to realize he was part of this organization? You know, one of the many things I respect about my dad at that time, he never brought

what was going on outside into the house. He would never talk about it. He would never mention it. Obviously, you know, every once in a while I'd hear a crack because law enforcement was outside surveilling him. But he would never bring it up. He would never admit to anything, never talk about anything. Obviously, a lot of his guys were coming to the house all the time. But to me, they were like uncle, you know, Uncle Sam, Uncle this guy.

So it was normal, you know, but I saw the way my dad was treated. We would go to the Copacabana and go out places. And, you know, he always had a lot of respect. People get a lot of charisma and he commanded a lot of respect in that regard. But never, never, never did he mention anything when I was younger. Never. So how'd you figure it out? Well, again, you know, from my observation, from what I read in the media, you know, there was huge stories about him all the time. And obviously, you know, what I saw and what other people told me. So and I never really brought it up to him. I would never say anything to him because to me, he was dad. You know, he was a

loving father. And I never did. It wasn't until I got older and my dad started, you know, getting indicted quite a bit and going on trial for, you know, serious crimes. He was on trial twice for grand larceny and once for murder. So obviously obviously during that, we had some talks and my dad would always say, you know, I'm innocent, son. I didn't commit these crimes. Eventually he was acquitted on three of those trials that he went to in the state of New York. So, you know, I started to know, obviously, as I got older. How was it? Because I know you know Sammy the Bull, and he came on the show two summers ago, and he was talking to me about how he tried to move his family into sort of a nicer neighborhood, and he wound up leaving because he was getting really

angry that the neighbors were telling their kids not to play with his kids. And he went over to the neighbor's house and he threatened them at the door, you know, like, I'm going to get you unless you, and he said, he had this realization, like, what am I doing? What, this is not, I'm scaring these people, you know, to within an inch of their lives. These are civilians. I can't be here. I got to go back to my normal. Like, I'm wondering how your dad was when you had scuffles at school, when the teachers were nasty to you, when the neighbors crossed a line. Were there any situations like that? You know, not really. I mean, we were kind of accepted in the neighborhood. You know what happened then? My dad was under surveillance from seven or eight different agencies, law enforcement agencies, and their tactics were different

back then than today. Everything is very covert, undercover informants, high-tech surveillance equipment. Back then, when they had you under investigation, they wanted you to know about it. And so for a period like seven, eight, nine years, we had constant law enforcement around us. They would sit, you know, on the front of our house, the back of our house so that we couldn't leave without them surveilling us. The neighbors actually got upset with them. I remember one woman putting a garden hose on them because she was so upset or tired of seeing them sitting in front of our house. My dad, you know, he was a charismatic guy. People liked him. You know, I didn't run into any of that. I mean, sometimes,

like I said, kids in school would get a little out of hand, but I would deal with it. But, you know, one thing I'll tell you, I played sports in school and my dad wouldn't miss a game. And when I was playing baseball, if I was up to bat, my dad walked onto the field. The umpire would never call strike three on me when he saw my dad. So I used to say, dad, you're very good for my batting average back then. But I didn't run into that kind of resistance from people. And neither did we. And what's that? Take me like, what years are we talking about?

What year were you born? I was born in 51. So we're talking, you know, late 50s, early 60s. And right through the 60s is when my dad really, you know, had all his trouble. So it was that whole decade. All right. And so how about you? You become, I mean, I'm picturing something, of course, like Goodfellas, where you're a

young kid and you're entranced by the lifestyle and you feel like a big man. But you tell me, how did you get attracted to the business yourself and make the decision to join? You know, it was just the opposite with me. My dad, you know, preached against me doing anything but getting an education. He wanted me to go to school, wanted me to be a doctor. He was, you know, hell bent on education. Mike, you're going to be the first professional in the family.

And he meant it. He kept me on that road. It wasn't until, you know, he was indicted in a federal case for masterminding a nationwide string of bank robberies. He gets convicted. He gets a 50-year prison sentence in 1967. And in 1970, when I was 19, he went off to do his time. Joe Colombo, who was the boss of our family, and I was very close with that family, he kind of takes me under his wing. We start to march with the Italian American Civil Rights League. We were marching against the FBI for, you know, defaming Italian Americans. So I got very involved in the league as a way to help my dad. Because, Megan, I'll tell you this, you know, when we get later on in this, I went to jail for a crime that I was guilty of.

I pled guilty, did my time. My dad obviously did a lot of bad things in his life, but that particular crime that he did 40 years in prison on, my dad was innocent of. I'll take that to my grave. We investigated every one of those witnesses. They recanted their testimony. We gave them lie detective tests, proved they lied at the trial. We can never get the conviction overturned. So I was hell bent on trying to help my dad prove his innocence because he had essentially a death sentence. He went in when he was 50 years old, 50 on top of that, you know, that's a long time. So I got into that life because I lost interest in school. I was a sophomore in college and I was

a pre-med student. I was highly influenced by Joe Colombo and the guys that I met during that time. And they would say, Mike, if you don't help your father out, he's going to die in prison. So I went to see him in Leavenworth in the penitentiary and we sat in the visiting room. I said, Dad, you tell me you're innocent. I believe you. I'm not going to school anymore. If I don't help you out, you're going to die in here. And we had a pretty intense discussion because he was against it, but he knew my mind was made up and I was a pretty headstrong kid. So he said to me, son, if you're going to be on the street, you know, I want you on the street the right way. And then, you know, Megan, I don't like to, you know, say this, I don't like to be offensive to people, but he asked me one question and he said, son, if you had to kill anybody, could you do it?

And I thought about it for a minute, you know, kind of a little bit surprised by the question, but I said, dad, if the circumstances were right, I can do it. And he said, that's the right answer. Go home. Somebody's going to be in touch with you. Do whatever you're told. And that's when he proposed me for membership in the life. Wow. It's almost like you were on the same path as Michael Corleone in The Godfather, right?

Like he was supposed to be the son who didn't get drawn into the business. He was going to be a senator or in a position of power. You were supposed to become a doctor and pursue a legit life. And yet you did get pulled. You did get pulled in. Yes. And, you know, it's like I said, it wasn't even though I was around my dad and listen, we always got first class treatment. I can't tell you how many times, Megan, I went to the Copacabana.

We met everybody from Sinatra on down and they all had respect for my dad and the owner, Julie Padel, loved my father. And we got that kind of treatment. My dad was also in the music business. I met a lot of artists when I was younger. So he carried himself in that way where people were attracted to him. And he was a tremendous influence on me in that regard. I watched him, I observed him. And but it wasn't I didn't want to be a gangster. That's not what my life was all about. You know, I was heading the legitimate way. And then I got drawn in because I just felt, you know, it was incumbent upon me to help my dad. I was also the oldest of the kids,

you know, and there's a myth in that life that, you know, once you're part of that life, you go to prison, they take care of you forever. That's not true. Whatever my dad had on the street at the time, you know, it ran out after about two years and then we were on our own. So I had to help support the family and do all the things that, you know, an older son would do. Wow. I didn't realize that. I thought, I thought, I believe the myth too. So now you're what, like in your young twenties and what did, how did you start to become a part of it? You know, do they, do they give give you a gun and say you've got to shoot somebody? This is one of the rumors that you've got to shoot somebody,

you've got to kill somebody in order to officially be accepted as part of the mafia. Is that true? How did you realize you were in, and what was expected of you? Well, my dad sent word downtown to the officials. About two weeks later, a cop regime, a captain in the family picked me up and he took me to see the boss. Now, Joe Colombo had been shot, seriously wounded at a big rally we had for the Italian American Civil Rights League at Columbus Circle. And I was like 12 steps away from him when that happened.

So a new boss had taken over. He's passed on now, Tom DiBella. And I sat with Tom. He says, Mike, I got a message from your father. He said, you want to become a member of our life. 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.

And that means if your mother is sick and she's dying and we call you to service and you're at her bedside, you leave your mother's side, 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 deserve this privilege, this honor to become a member of Let You Know. And that's how it started. I was 21 years old. I was in kind of like a pledge period. I was a recruit. That's the official title of that, where I had to do anything and everything I was told to do to prove myself worthy. And, you know, it could have been something very menial, a lot of discipline in that life, a lot of alleged respect, a lot of, you know, authority. You had a meeting at eight o'clock. You weren't there at 730. You were late. Can never be late in that life. Drive the boss to a meeting, sit in the car, two, three,

four hours. God forbid you leave, go to the restroom, get a newspaper. He comes out and you're not there. You're in trouble. You know, I know I did that once. I paid the price. A lot of stuff like that. And, you know, Megan, I got to be honest. You know, the life is very violent at times. And if you're part of that life, you're part of the violence and there's no escape. And if anybody tells you differently, they're either not being honest with you, or they weren't a made man in that life. And you know, I think you know what I mean. It's, but you know, here's the other myth, you know, a lot of guys talk about, you know, all these killings, like we ran around all day long,

and all we did was baseball bad people and murder people. Absolutely not true. You know, in our life, and at least in our family, I can tell you this, you know, murder was taken very seriously. It was a last course of action. It had to be approved by the boss. There was discussion over it most of the time, at least my experience in 20 plus years I've put into that life, it wasn't that guys were around, running around every day, just targeting people to hurt. And I know there's a lot of guys on YouTube that talk their way now. That wasn't my experience, but it is part of the life. And if you're called upon to do it, you got to do it. Was it petty crime? Was it like, you didn't pay back the loan, so I got to break your legs? That's not petty, but I'm just saying it wasn't it was violent, but it wasn't murder. And, you know, the last course of action is

to hurt somebody because if somebody is in debt to you, you want them to pay you. It's only if they're, you know, doing something like so obnoxious to you that, hey, you've got to teach this guy a lesson. But it's not the first course of action, at least with me it wasn't. And with most of the people that I knew at that time, certainly not with my dad, that wasn't the first course of action. But did it happen at times? Yeah. I'm not going to say it didn't. And with most of the people that I knew at that time, certainly not with my dad, that wasn't a first course of action. But did it happen at times? Yeah, I'm not going to say it didn't. And you know, there was kind of two different categories, I would say, in that life. You're either a racketeer or you're a gangster. Give you an example. In our family, we had 115 maid guys at that time. This was after I took the oath. 115 made guys. Out of that 115,

maybe 20 of us were real earners. We were bringing money into the life. 20. The other 95, who's got a no-show job? Who's got a gambling? Who's trying to do something just to make a few bucks? And they're the guys that were leaned upon most of the time to do the work because you got to earn your way in that life. Guys that are bringing in money, they want to protect those guys. However, a gangster never really had the ability to become a racketeer because if he did, he would be and he'd be earning. But a racketeer has to be both because you're going to be called upon in that life to do what you have to do and you can't refuse and you got to be capable in that regard. So, you know, but again, the smarter guys, you don't want to hurt people every day. That's

not what we were out to do. It must have been a jarring flip, right? To go from this world in which you thought you were going to be a doctor healing people to this world in which you became part of the mafia, sometimes having to hurt people, right? Like, do you ever think about it like that? You know, I did, Megan, but quite honestly, maybe it was because being around my dad my whole life or maybe I did have something in me. Maybe I wasn't destined to be a doctor. I don't know.

I mean, I often reflected on that myself and said, you know, how did I adapt to this so well? Because, you know, I had some success in life. And look, I'll be honest with you. You know, I had a very idealistic view of the life. When I got into the life, you know, they told me, hey, you know, you don't ever have to worry. Wherever you go in the world, somebody's going to have your back. Don't ever worry about your mother, your sister, your wife, your daughter. Nobody's ever going to hurt them. We'll protect them. You have a brotherhood around you. You know, I was going to be, you know, bonded in blood in a different way, you know, with my father than I already was. So I had a very idealistic view of

the life coming in. I was excited about it, you know, and I wanted to be the best possible mob guy I could be at that time. So, you know, maybe I did have it in me all the time. I just didn't know it. This is Mobs for Dummies. So to become a made guy, what does it mean? And I know you took like the oath of Omerta, which I really I think I also took that same oath at Fox News. But is that only when you become a made guy or is that just like when you first sort of join the mob? Yeah, well, I was in kind of, like I said, a recruit period. And it was an interesting period because from 19 from the early 1950s right through 1974 75, they had an expression in the life that covered all five families and that the books were closed. They weren't making or recruiting any new guys. The only way they were able to do

that in one of the families, if somebody died, they were able to bring another guy in to replace that person. So when I was a recruit, I was around guys that were waiting 20 years to become a made guy. Meaning what though? Like, is it you're in the mafia, but you're not made? I mean, I only know the Goodfellas reference when Joe Pesci's character became made, he became more important somehow, but he was in the mob prior to that moment. Right. Well, prior to that, you become an associate, meaning that somebody that's an official in that life puts you on record with them and you're officially with that person. That makes you an official associate. Nobody else can do business with you unless the maid guy says it's okay and he has complete authority over you.

He's responsible for you and you're responsible to answer to him. That's an associate. So when you're in a recruit like I was, I was an associate, but it's not an official position in that life. Once you get, you know, you prove yourself and you're approved to become a maid member, which is the term that they use. Well, then you take an oath and you become a soldier and a soldier is the first official position in that life. The next ranking up is a cap regime or a captain. And then you have the hierarchy, which is the boss, the underboss, and the consigliere. And that's it. Those are the rankings. And with the boss, the underboss, and the consigliere,

and who's the don? Is he above all of them, or is that the boss? Yeah. The don is an expression that you hear from Italy, but the boss of the family is, is, can be considered the Don. Okay. So thank you for walking me through this. Yeah. Okay. So we, they made a movie about your life and, um, they, they reenacted the moment that you took the oath, uh, which would have been in 1975. This is from the 2014 documentary profiling you. God the Father was the name. Here's a bit of that. If you ever violate the oath of Lacosa Nostra, you burn in hell like the saint burning in your hands. Your allegiance to La Cosa Nostra is bound in blood.

Should you ever violate this oath, your blood will be shed. You will keep the secrets and traditions you will hear and learn about. You will not violate another member's wife, sister, or daughter, or ever raise your hand against another member. And you will carry out every order given to you. A Cosa Nostra comes before anything and everything in your life.

How accurate was that? That was pretty accurate. You know, that's the oath. And obviously they do, you know, shed a little blood. They prick your finger and they have a knife there and they make a little slit. And then they burn a saint in your hands. And that's the oath.

I mean, it's quick, but it's very serious. In Tridel, they spin you around three times and make you sing a song. It's different, but it's also similar. It's a little different. Quite the initiation experience and different expectations. So you become a maid guy.

Now at this point, are you developing a family? Like I would think the more layers you have and the more connections to sort of regular society, schools and the bridge club, whatever, the more complicated this gets. That marriage lasted for a couple of years. I had three children in three years with my first wife. And I'm married now for 38 years with my wife, Camille. We have four more children. So I have seven altogether. But, you know, Megan, here's the thing that I've said. And I'm careful the way I said this. You know, I always call the mob life, the street life, the gang life, they're evil lifestyles.

And I'm not calling the guys evil. I was one of them. I just happen to be very fortunate to be in the position I am now. But the lifestyle is evil because I don't know any family of any member of that life that hasn't been devastated. And I mean that, including my own. Now, not my wife and kids. I've been able to, you know, to spare them of that. But my mom was, my dad did 40 years on that 50. My mom, she died in 2012. She was 33 years without her husband. At the end of her life, I can only describe her relationship with my dad as being ugly because she blamed him for everything that went wrong in her life. And rightfully so. What went wrong? I had a sister,

27 years old, died of an overdose of drugs. A lot of turbulence in my household, and rightfully so. What went wrong? I had a sister, 27 years old, died of an overdose of drugs. A lot of turbulence in my household, always. It was a crazy lifestyle. She dies at 27. My younger brother, 25 years as a drug addict. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I had to save his life and how much trouble he caused the family because of his drug addiction. Eventually, he got himself in trouble, cooperated with the government, wired himself up against my father, and he put my father back in jail on another case. And my dad was 92 years old when that happened. He was out on parole. A son going against the father. And another sister, you know, 20, I mean, she was 41 years old. She wasn't ever mentally stable.

She grew up in this turbulence, didn't sit well with her. She passed away at 41. So my whole family was destroyed. And every family of every member of that life that I know is in a similar situation. So any lifestyle that does that for a family is obviously a bad or an evil lifestyle. So, you know, it's, and you don't realize that going in, I didn't realize, hey, I'm going to go to jail for all these years and my family's going to be destroyed. I didn't think that way. Again, I had an idealistic

view of the life. Even seeing what my father went through, I kind of pushed that out and said, well, that's not going to happen to me. Or if it does happen to me, I'll deal with it. I was always the type of guy that figured, hey, I can figure everything out and I'll deal with it and somehow I'll make it work. So I had that kind of an attitude. But yes, it's very, very rough on the families, no doubt. So was your first brush with the law Rudy Giuliani? No, that was, oh gosh, that was way, way, way later on. I had- That was your last. Yeah, that was way later. That was in 84. I mean, my first brush with the law was with the Italian American Civil Rights League when we were picketing. I got in an altercation

with a cop and I hit him and they beat me up and it was a mess. But I was like 20 years old when that happened. And then, you know, I had a bullseye on my back immediately because of my dad. I was arrested 18 times. I had seven indictments altogether. I had two federal racketeering cases, one state RICO indictment, and I had four other state of New York cases. So from the time I was 20 years old, I was getting arrested, getting indicted, fighting the law.

It was just a lifelong battle for me. That's amazing. I mean, it's truly like racketeering, Giuliani, multiple indictments in New York. It sounds just like somebody who I know is the former president and likely to be potentially the next president, Donald Trump, which we'll get to because I know you've got some insights on what he's going through. But this, you know, racketeering was, is a charge that was created so that federal prosecutors could get at mobsters who they hadn't been able to sort of sweep up in a big net of criminality. And I know you got caught in that, that net eventually. So you've got maybe 14 years there where you get arrested and you get out or

you get some small punishment. Can you give me a flavor for how you were the, you were a racketeer, you weren't a gangster. What kinds of things were you doing? How are you paying the bills to where you were considered in that first group? Well, you know, I, um, I was fortunate, I think, in that I understood how to use that life to benefit me in business. And, you know, I went on to make a very significant amount of money, both legally and illegally. You know, I had two automobile dealerships, legitimate. I had a Mazda and a Chevrolet agency. I had a leasing company. I had a couple of restaurants that I was involved in.

I had a film production company at one point in time that actually we made about 30 films at the time and distributed them throughout the world. So I had a lot of legitimate things going on. But the biggest enterprise or scam, whatever you want to call it, that I got involved in was the wholesale gasoline business. And in a nutshell, I devised a scheme along with a partner to defraud the government out of tax on every gallon of gasoline. And it was an operation we ran for about eight years. I had the Russian mob guys from Brighton Beach involved with me. I had about 350 gas stations I either owned or operated at that time. And I had 18 companies that were licensed

to collect the tax on every gallon of gasoline. Heart of our operation, we're selling a half a billion gallons of gas a month and we're taking down 20, 30, 40 cents a gallon, whatever the market would bear at that time. So we're bringing in several million dollars a week. And that was, there were other guys doing it. You know, some of the Russians were doing it. But I think we perfected the system and lasted, you know, quite long. And we had a lot of other people that were trying to do it that were involved with us. So we we created that scam. And it was, you know, people said it was the biggest scam since prohibition. And I believe that. I don't think there was anything else because we weren't big drug dealers. And obviously, when you talk drugs, you know, enormous money. But we weren't big drug dealers, despite what everybody says. Not true.

When I took an oath, they told me straight out, you deal with drugs, you die. And we weren't allowed to touch it. And there were some guys doing it on the sly, yeah. But we weren't major drug dealers, at least back during my era. So, you know, I was doing a lot of things. And I had a head for business. And I just kept plugging away. What, you know, I was doing a lot of things and I had a head for business and I just kept plugging away. What do you do with the money? Do you turn it over to the family? Do you put it in a checking account? Well, you know, we do both. I mean, I had to give up 25%

of my, whatever I earned, had to go up the ladder to the family. And that's the deal that I made with the boss at the time. And then, you deal that I made with the boss at the time. And then, you know, I had several bank accounts. I had bank accounts overseas that we wired money out to. I had a lot of cash at that time. I had a safe in my house. So, you know, different ways. And you wash money. When I was in the film business, I produced a couple of movies with, you know, gas tax money that I had cleaned up. So it became a chore, quite honestly, because we had so much money coming in and we had to devise a system to get rid of it, basically, or to put it in places that were secure. Is it like the movies where you get in trouble if you're too flashy, if your wife buys a fur coat, you're supposed to look like you're not making that kind of dough.

Well, you know, some guys like my dad, I mean, he would drive around in a 1964 red Plymouth Valiant that my mother wouldn't even get into. I mean, he didn't want anybody to know what he was doing in a way. I wasn't that way. I mean, look, I was earning money. So, I mean, I had a jet plane. I had a helicopter. I had houses in three parts of the country. You know, one house I built on two acres of land with a racquetball court and all of that. But I was making legitimate money. I was paying taxes at that time, too. So, I was able to show that. But no, we didn't get in trouble for that. I mean, nobody told us how to live. You know,

if I mean, if there was something like in the movie Goodfellas and you had to lay low for a while, I mean, that was certainly a possibility. But I wasn't in that category. Yeah. You mentioned that you made some movies and it just so happens that the producer of this segment, Natasha, is a huge fan of one of your movies called Mausoleum. So she has queued up this this little clip in part of the trailer for the audience and sat to. She gave her soul to the evil force in the mausoleum. What's the matter, Susan? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What, Susan? What? What?

Oh, my God! Now, the secret haunts her, and she cannot control the power. That looks amazing. Megan, I got to tell you the story behind this really quickly, all right? Especially if you have there that loves the movie. I have a guy around me. He was a Jewish guy by the name of Jerry Zimmerman. Very close to me.

Loved the guy. He was in the car business with me. Long story short, he gets himself in some very serious trouble. And I have to have a sit down with a made guy from another family over Jerry. They wanted to kill him. And I really had to fight to keep him alive because he insulted some made guys. You're not allowed to do that. Anyway, I clear him.

Right. But this guy was an old timer, the captain in the other family. And he was so incensed with this. I said, Jerry, I don't trust this guy. Even though we got it clear, you could be walking down the street, a car barrels into you. I don't trust this guy. Even though we got it clear, you could be walking down the street, a car barrels into you. I don't know what's going to happen. I said, I want you to go out to California with your brother. He had a brother out here. And just stay there. Let me make sure this is okay. So he goes out. About two months later,

he calls me up. He says, hey, chief, we're going to be in the movie business. I said, what do you know about movies? He said, oh, don't worry about it. I got a script. I got a director. He says, send me $83,000 and you're my partner, right? So I send him the money. P.S., this is the movie Mausoleum. A million dollars later, we produced that film that honestly didn't scare anyone but me after I saw what happened with it. But that was my intro into the business because we lost money on that film initially. But listen to this, especially for your worker there. All of a sudden, that film becomes a cult classic. And I've been earning money on that film for the last 30 years, up until about three months ago, somebody came to me and said, I'll give you 50 grand to take it over. And I sold it to him.

But I've been earning on it for 30 years after, after it was the worst. It was crazy. This business is so crazy. You never know what's going to happen. It's so rare to make movie, uh, to make money off of the movies. It's like happens once in a million. Um, so, okay. Mausoleum comes out. Now you're in the movie business. That's kind of exciting. And was there ever like you said, you met Frank Sinatra at the Copacabana. You know, how how incestuous do you feel like Hollywood, the entertainment industry is with the mafia? Because, you know, there's all sorts of speculation. Well, look, we had relationships there for sure.

I mean, there was, you know, agents that I was very close with one in particular that's passed away now. But so, you know, Megan, I have to tell you this. A lot of people in the industry liked being around us. We didn't have to chase them and threaten them and do all of that. They enjoyed our company. Some of the guys like they love being around my father. I think people enjoyed being around me because, you know, we carried ourselves a certain way. We weren't looking to put the arm on somebody all the time. And so they enjoyed being in business with us. And I don't I don't have to tell you, you know, in this business, if you can bring money to the table, people like you. I don't think they really care who you are, you know, in many cases. But, you know, so look, we did have involvement. We didn't control the industry in any way. I wouldn't say that. But did we have, you know, presence there? Yes. Listen, did Joe Colombo absolutely have an impact on the movie The Godfather? 100%. I mean, I don't know if you saw that series, The Offer. Yeah, I actually am watching that right now.

Well, I thought it was brilliantly done. I mean, I really did. And a lot of it was true. You know, that was my era. I was there during all of that. And I was very close to Joey at that time. So a lot of it was very accurate. And, you know, he did have that control. And he did have an impact. The word mafia was taken out of the script. That's for sure. Joey did that. He did shut it down at some point, you know, with the union and they did have to come back to him in order to continue production. So, you know, we did have influence. What about, you know, I realize the mafia is not what it used to be, but when you're out there walking around as a civilian, what are the businesses you go by or you go into where you're like, probably connected? Oh, gosh. Well, unions, you know, for sure. And, you know, another myth, another myth is that

we sit in our social clubs and we target the next business that we're going to take over, defraud, influence or whatever. Not always so. So often, people from inside their company would come to us. Hey, we have a way to defraud our company. We have a way to make some money. You're going to protect us. You're going to give us money. You're never going to tell on us. So a lot of people from inside the company would come to us. Happened to me with General Motors. Happened to me with Mazda. Happened to me with GE Credit. Quite often. And that's how I got involved in some legitimate businesses.

But, you know, look, unions, of course, you know, I'll tell you this, too. You know, people come to me about Donald Trump. Did Donald Trump deal with the mob? And yeah, he did. And so did Helmsley. And so did Guterman. And so did anybody in New York that wanted to get that building made and had to deal with the unions.

You just had to. And, you know, so does that does that make somebody in bed with the mob? No, you're just doing business. So, you know, yes, we had influence, you know, in the poetry businesses to like launder. I guess for a very brief time when I was with Jones Day, the law firm I was with for many years, I did a little white collar crime work, the opposite side. And I remember I took the deposition of this guy who was working for one of the crime families and they were laundering money through these funeral homes. And I thought, my God, I would never have thought funeral homes would be a place where the mob would be in control laundering money.

But, you know, anything's like that. Did you have any familiarity with funeral homes or anything like it? Yeah, one of my dear friends who's passed on now, he was a funeral director. He had a funeral home. So, yeah, it is a place you can watch money. People pay with cash. Any place where people are paying with cash is a place to launder money. Restaurants, pizza ballers, you know, obviously

places like that. So, because there isn't a really good accounting with that and you can, you can put a lot of cash through it and get a lot of cash out of it. So, um, you know, those were the kinds of favorites. I mean, listen, in the, in the film business, nobody really did an accounting of where the money came from. So, I mean, I made movies with stolen gas tax money. Right. So you and as you were rising in wealth and notoriety and, you know, you were succeeding. You were, you know, as we said in the intro, one of the most successful mobsters ever. You got featured.

You weren't in the movie Goodfellas, but your name was used as one of sort of the big guys when Ray Liotta was walking through the restaurant or going into the sort of the seat. This is where is this where he's taking his girlfriend out for a date, like one of the first dates? I'm trying to remember. I haven't seen the clip yet, but I yeah. OK, so we'll play it because they mention your name in this. And says yeah Mikey franchise I saw him friends days watch and then there was Pete the killer who was Sally balls his brother and you had Nikki eyes and Mikey franchisee so that's supposed to be you were you you surprised to see yourself featured in Goodfellas?

I was really surprised because, you know, I mean, I knew that crew very well. I knew Henry very well. I knew Jimmy Burke and Pauly Barrio, you know, was a dear friend of mine in the family. But I was surprised because that was a different family. And Nick Pelleggi, who was the writer, after I saw that, I called Nick up and I said, Nick, why'd you throw me in there? He said, oh, Michael, you had name value and all that. And, you know, you knew all those guys.

I said, yeah, but you could have at least got them to say my name correctly, you know. So he left. But I was surprised. I didn't expect to see that. OK, so eventually Rudy Giuliani does come into your life and, you know, Rudy Giuliani, we kind of know him much differently today, but he was, I mean, an absolute hero in many ways back in the day and cleaning up New York. And he was former federal prosecutor. He was, he was the U S attorney for the Southern district of New York, which is considered the most prestigious

U S attorney post in the, in the country. And when he was young, he wasn't kidding around. He was, I mean, a true crime fighter and very focused on the mob. And that put you in his crosshairs. So talk about that. Well, yeah, he indicted me on a major racketeering case. I was a lead defendant and I had 15 co-defendants. And it was a big, you know, Shylocking case, you know, money extortion case, allegedly. And I was supposed to have financed a leasing company that was probably had 1,500 legitimate loans on the street and about 30 Shylock loans. And I was the one that, you know, allegedly put up the money for that, which wasn't true. But anyway, so I get indicted. And I'll never forget in the courtroom, you know, Rudy comes up to me and my attorney, John Jacobs, at the time, and he says, Franzese, if I convict you on this case, I'm giving you double what your father got, you're going to get 100. And, you

know, that's the kind of time that we're giving those guys back then. And I remember standing toe to toe with him. And I say, Rudy, bring it on. I beat you guys four times already. Let's go for round five, which I always say is the dumbest thing to do. You know, you don't give them any more. Fortunately, after a several month trial in federal court in Manhattan, I was acquitted in that case. And my co-defendant, some of them got convicted. One of them got 30 years.

So I would have got a lot of time, no doubt. That's amazing. I mean, that's downright scary. The only thing that's scarier than seeing somebody like you across from me angry would be somebody like that who really has the power to take your life away in a different way. And he could do it. Well, I'll tell you, you know, you got to give Rudy either the credit or the blame, depending upon what side you're on.

He was the one that really used the racketeering laws effectively, because it had been on the books for quite some time. They just didn't use it. But he made it a tremendous weapon. And I say that Rico is the single most damaging tool that the government had to, you know, bring a lot of destruction to that life. And, you know, Rudy and I, I wouldn't say we were friends, but we certainly healed things after 30 years. He actually wrote the forward in my book, which he did a great job. Yeah, it really is. And you know what? He was a great mayor. I don't kill anybody. He says he cleaned up. He was a great mayor. He was great. Yeah, I know. It wasn't until he got, you know, connected with Trump and so on. And then he's

just started behaving very erratically. He was kind of not like his former self, but yes, he wrote wonderful things about you in your book and talked about how, when, when he first met you, his team was prosecuting you, um, that they took on the five families in, of New York's mafia and one, and that they prosecuted you many times. But he goes on to say that, hold on a second, I want to find it, that he got a little angry when he read articles about you in places like Fortune, the list of the 50 most wealthy and powerful mob bosses, Vanity Fair, claiming you were the biggest moneymaker in the mafia since Al Capone, which we referenced, but ultimately struck a deal with you. And really what he was saying in the fore since Al Capone, which we referenced, but ultimately struck a deal with you. And really

what he was saying in the foreword was that you ultimately had a conversion and that while he was skeptical at first, he, knowing you all these years actually came to believe it, that you were committed to changing your life, that you actually did find God and that you were going to leave this life of crime behind you, which is the redemption part of your story. And it's extraordinary. So eventually you did not, you did not escape Rudy's focus and tell us how you wound up going to jail. Well, you know, after I was acquitted in the Giuliani case, um, several months later, I think not that long, three or four months later,

I was indicted in Brooklyn on this whole gas tax scheme, among some other things. And, you know, the principal witness against me in the Giuliani case would have been the principal witness against me in this next case in Brooklyn, this next Rico case. And we beat him, you know, in Rudy's case, they didn't, jury didn't believe him. So the government was getting nervous now because I had beaten him. That was my fifth time that they tried to convict me at trial and were unsuccessful. So that was five failures on their part. At the same time, Megan, I met my wife, who's now my wife for 38 years. And I basically started to think, you know, I saw what was going on with the racketeering law.

Guys, when I was in MCC, when they locked me up without bail, there were guys going to trial, getting convicted, getting 100 years, 70 years, 150 years. I'm the youngest guy out of many of them. I said they're going to give me 300 years if I ever get convicted. This life is in trouble. I see guys starting to become informants. I meet my wife. I said, this is trouble. I got to try to make an exit here. And so I had leverage over the government because beating them in the Giuliani case gave me some leverage. So we negotiated a plea deal. I got a 10-year prison sentence, $15 million restitution, $5 million in forfeitures, and went off to do my time. And it was planning my exit at that time because I figured, hey, I do a bunch of years in prison, but I'd come out, I'd have parole and probation.

I move out to the West Coast. I can't associate with anybody when I was on parole. Maybe after 10 or 12 years, the guys will forget about me and I can live happily ever after with my new wife here in California. And that was my original plan. That's how I started to make the exit. Didn't work out exactly that way, but eventually it worked out well. Okay. But I got to ask you whether you ever considered, you know, flipping, becoming a rat, as they say, because there must've been some sort of a deal that would have involved no jail time if you would have helped Rudy Giuliani as opposed to just admitted you did

some things. Absolutely. They offered me when I was taking the plea, they offered me no jail time, minimum jail time if I would cooperate. And I refused. I said, no, you know, I just want as as part of the plea deal, I had not immunity, but they couldn't prosecute me for any of my past crimes other than murder. And I wasn't worried about that. So, because I wanted to try to wrap everything up, but my plea deal was no cooperation whatsoever.

I didn't talk to them, didn't do anything. What happened was four years later, when I was doing my time, a fellow by name of Norby Walters got himself in some trouble. And he was my partner, I had given him 250,000 to be an agent for sports athletes. And long story short, he implicated me in some scheme while I was in prison, they brought me in to testify against him. And I said, Listen, I don't know what he was doing. I was in prison. But yes, he was my partner. Yes, I did give him money. And that's what I testified to. Well, after that happened, and that was in Chicago, people from the Eastern District came out to see me. And they said, well, you're already a dead man. Now you got on a stand and you testified. I said, Norby Wolfe was my guy. He's not, has nothing to do with anybody. He's my responsibility. Nobody's

going to be mad at me for this. And so I chased him away. I said, I'm not cooperating with you guys. I got a few months left to go to be in prison. I'll do my time and come home. Megan, I made it. I said, I will never go against my associates and put anybody in prison. I can't do that. So I'm going to be honest with you. And John Gleason verifies this in his book. I sat down and talked to them, but I basically was able to pull the wool over their eyes because what somebody had told me at the time, and it turned out to be true, I was dealing with the strike force in the Eastern District and somebody told me they were going to be disbanded. They said, Michael, you can talk to these guys. It's never going to go anywhere because they're going to disband the strike force. And so when I started talking to them about certain things, a few months later, they disbanded the strike force and that was it. And they only had a year to talk to me. After that, they couldn't talk to me anymore.

So it really was. This is sorry. I thought this is very interesting because I mentioned Sammy the Bull. And I mean, honestly, that was one of the most interesting interviews I have ever done. I mean, I have never had an interview before that had a line like, was that before or after the 19th murder? I mean, this is the conversation he and I had. He put it all out there. It was absolutely riveting. And I know you guys together in a very interesting series Patrick Beth David did on the mafia went on together. It got kind of heated. I know you guys, I think you get along, but in this particular moment, not so much. Here it is in SOT 6. He read it. He cooperated. He cooperated with the fucking government. He wanted

us to get on his fucking high horse. I didn't send somebody to prison. He met with the fucking government and ratted. You're a fucking rat. You want to talk like that? Put your fucking finger at me. What am I going to do? I'll break your fucking face. Oh, God.

I would not upset him. FYI, having researched him quite a bit. That's not somebody you want to upset. So he's calling you a rat. But isn't that what Sammy the Bull is infamous for? Well, among other things, right? Because he didn't have to serve jail time because he actually did turn. He turned on Gotti. Well, he served a lot of jail time. I mean, they cut it short. But listen, Sammy and I are friends. We did get into a heated moment and I understand what he was trying to do at the time. But we patched it up after that because I don't know if you continue that. I got up and said,

Sammy, you're not the underboss anymore. Sit down. You know, so we kind of, and that's how we kind of ended it. But we've become friends since then. Listen, I'm not joking. He did. underboss anymore sit down you know so we kind of and that's how we kind of ended it but we become friends since then listen i i'm not he did um you know look i like his family very much his son his son calls me up and asks me how do i deal with my dad he's driving me crazy you know so it's yeah but uh we patched it up because you know we both came to realize you know

it doesn't benefit either one of us by showing that side of that life or we're angry with one another and all of that. Because there was, you know, we'd rather show a different side of that life, even though it is what it is. But anyway, yeah, you know, look, Megan, for me, again, the bottom line is I didn't put anybody in prison. I didn't testify at any made guys trial. I didn't do any of that. They tried to get me. They put me in solitary for three years trying to break me. Twenty nine months and seven days. Actually, they were very upset with me. And John Gleason said it in his book about Gotti. He says, Franz, he's basically took us to the cleaners because we got nothing out of him. And, um, you know, look, but they can call me a rat or, you know, that's, that's, that's the most widely used term on all of this genre on, you know, the comments that you get

and people that are on YouTube now, but Hey, look, well, that's the one that I have realized in the wake of my interview with Sammy, like, you don't want to be called that. I mean, I, I know guys who I believe have some sort of a connection who have said nothing to me ever about any show I've ever done. But after Sammy the Bull came on, they started coming out of the woodwork. The guy's a rat. He's a rat. And I've always wondered, oh, God, you know, like, are they saying that because they're connected or they just understand the code? I don't know.

But that seems to be something taken deadly seriously in the mob. Oh, yeah. You know, one of the things this might be interesting, Joe Pistone, Donnie Brasco. Joe and I have become very good friends now. Now, I met him once on the street and I always tease him. This is the guy who went undercover and infiltrated the mob and was portrayed by Johnny Depp in a movie of the same name. Keep going. Correct. Well, we became friends. He was on my YouTube. I did his. And Sammy and I got into a heat about that. He said, how can you befriend that guy? He put so many Italians away. And I said, hey, Sammy. I said, he was an undercover agent. He was doing his job and he did his job better than we did ours. You don't get mad at a guy when they're not framing you, when they're

doing their job and they outgun you. That's it. You know, get mad at a guy when they're not framing you, when they're doing their job and they outgun you. That's it. You know, we used to tell agents on the street, hey, come after us. We get it. You're on one side. We're on the other. Just don't frame us. Get us honestly. You have enough tools, enough weapons. You got all the money in the world and all the time. Just come after us the right way. And we're not mad. And, you know, look, Joe Pistone, I mean, what he did for six years to be undercover and not be noticed by our guys, that was a real failure on our part, number one. And number two, it was pretty heroic because at any point in time, he could have walked into that room if somebody would have discovered something and he would have been in a lot of trouble and it didn't turn out that way. So, I mean, I give him credit for the

work that he did. And, you know, if I was on the street, I wouldn't be saying that, but, you know, just different. Yeah, no, I mean, certainly from my vantage point, that guy's a hero, right? It takes a lot of courage to infiltrate the mob and try to crime fight in that particularly dangerous manner.

Just for the audience at home, here's a clip from the movie Donnie Brasco where Al Pacino's character, Lefty, who's in the mob, meets Donnie, played by Johnny Depp, and tries to sell him a diamond. I'm asking you to middle a diamond for me here. Now, all I want from my end is 8,000. What I'm saying to you is you should give it to somebody that don't know any better, because that's a fugazi, all right? That's a fugazi?

How do you know it's a fugazi? You looked at it for two seconds. Well, it's a fake. Yeah, I know what a fugazi is. What do you make of that? So you don't think that could have really happened? I mean, it did happen. He did infiltrate.

And you're just saying that those guys were too careless, that they should have caught him. Yeah. I mean, they should have did their homework and their research. Unfortunately, you know, when he presented himself as an earner, sometimes guys' eyes, you know, open up and, hey, I can earn money with this guy. And they get a little bit careless. And I do have to say this, that was Al Pacino, in my view, that was his best role. I knew Lefty fairly well, and he just nailed, he nailed that character so well. He was just great. Really great. What did you make of, you said you knew Henry Hill, that was the Ray Liotta character in Godfather, Godfather, Goodfellas. What did you think of that portrayal? Because that was that was i mean i don't know

you know everybody loves godfather including me but goodfellas was just such a riveting film where you couldn't you were so pulled in by that character henry hill i told you i gotta get out of here and straighten out everything with paul you're also dead karen then you're better off staying in here karen they can whack me in here just as easy as they can outside maybe even easier they're all afraid i'm gonna wrap them out people are already walking away from me i'm dead Then you're better off staying in here. Karen, they can whack me in here just as easy as they can outside. Maybe even easier. They're all afraid I'm going to rat them out. People are already walking away from me. I'm dead in here.

You've got to get me out. Well, Megan, you know, Henry's gone now. And I knew Henry well. I had kind of an affection to Henry because when he did that whole Boston College betting scandal, he gave me some tips and I made some money at the time. But Henry never looked so good as he did in that movie. That's for sure. You know, and I can tell you this. He never walked into the back of the Copacabana without Paulie or somebody being with him. That's for sure. He didn't have that kind of prominence. You know, unfortunately, he had a drinking problem. He was

an alcoholic and he got into drugs fairly early, you know, and he had that kind of problem. Look, he's he would have got killed. There's no question about he wouldn't have lasted on the street because Polivario was was pretty upset with him. So was Jimmy, you know, and he did what he did. But believe me, he was made to look great in that movie. I'll bet. Well, I mean, it was based on his book, right, which I'm sure was made to look great in that movie. I'll bet. Well, I mean, it was based on his book, right? Which I'm sure also made him look great.

And then Hollywood takes it next level. So, and of course, Ray Liotta's gone too, which is sad. What about these guys? You know, there's a question about whether any of them is actually in the mob, whether there's any sort of a connection, whether it's De Niro, Pacino. Did these guys have any sort of a relationship? I mean, for Sinatra, we've heard, we've heard yes. Well, you know, not that they were, like I said, part of a crew or anything like that. Did they have relationships? I mean, Paulie Sirico, I think, you know, he, you know, he was involved

at one point in time, then became an actor. They all had relationships. Jimmy Kahn, you know, he was involved at one point in time, then became an actor. They all had relationships. Jimmy Kahn, you know, was very close with my one-time captain, with Andrew Russo, very close. The, what was his name? Oh, gosh. Lenny Montana, who played Luca Brazzi in The Godfather, was very close with me. Very close, you know, and he was, we were together out here on the West Coast before he passed away. A lot of guys had relationships. prison, your dad was still in prison and the relationship broke down. Was that because of the thing you just told us about where you did wind up testifying in that one case? Is that what turned him on you? No, it wasn't that. What happened was when I was in Terminal Island Prison out in California and the warden had called me at the associate warden I don't remember exactly and said there's a reporter that's doing a story on you in Life magazine and I think 20 years

earlier they had done the biggest story ever on my dad in Life magazine it was like 29 pages it was on his murder case. It was a huge story, right? So this reporter now is doing a story on me. So I'm in prison. And he tells the warden, if Michael talks to me, it'll be a better story. So I'm trying to make my exit. I'm trying to get the government off my back. I want to get out of there and have no trouble. I just married this young girl. So I sit down with him and I tell him standard mob stuff. There is no mafia. I married this girl. I'm living out in the West Coast and all this kind of stuff. I'm done with anything back in New York. Well, the article comes out and the warden calls me into the office.

He says, Francis, do you have a death wish? I said, what are you talking about? And he shows me the article. And it was a big double page with a picture of me and on the top quitting the mafia. And I'm in jail with other mob guys. And this guy had me doing everything but testifying at the time. And that's when word started to drop that, hey, maybe this guy is going bad. What's going on? Then the government comes in to see me again. You know, the feds come in and they say, Francis, you know, this is a bad article.

You better cooperate with us. We got word from our informants. People are upset with you. Then they, you know what they did, Megan? It was really dirty. They put my name on the witness list of certain trials that were coming up in New York. I'm sending messages back to my dad. I said, dad, don't believe this. I'm not cooperating. But you know, everybody says that. And then you see them on the witness stand or you get their info and discovery. I mean, that happened to me. You know, so they really, really tried to put a lot of pressure on me at the time. My dad kind of backed off. But, you know, he never really totally backed off. You know, Megan, what happened with me and my dad, and I'll summarize this, I got called into one of the horrors of that life.

You make a mistake, your best friend walks you into a room, you don't walk out again. And obviously throughout my years, I know when that's occurred. Well, I got that call because there was an article that came out, I think it was in Long Island Press, that I was becoming powerful enough to break away from the Colombo, start my own family. They had me making $2 billion a year. It was a total fictional article, did no basis in reality at all. But I get called into a room one night and I was scared.

I said, wow, the way the circumstances were, I thought I can get killed walking into that room. That's how I felt. And I was scared, I'll be honest with you. You know, when you think you're gonna meet your maker, it's scary and I knew the life. And I was scared. I'll be honest with you. You know, when you think you're going to meet your maker, it's scary. And I knew the life. And so I'm sitting down there and I'm getting grilled on how much money is coming in. Two billion dollars.

And I said, hey, you know, they lie about everybody. Now they make a story about me and it's true. I said, what are you listening to? I'm handing in everything. Well, my father wasn't there, but he was called in before me. And what I found out that night is that he didn't help me in that meeting. He actually hurt me because what he did, instead of standing up for me, he said, I'm on parole. I don't do anything. My son handles everything. If

anything's wrong, I don't know. So he kind of threw me under the bus. And I can tell you this, Megan, I didn't meet my wife until two years later. But I really believed I was stunned when I found that out. And it was true. Because I said, man, if this life can separate me and my dad, what do I really have here? And I just filed it away. I didn't say anything. You don't you don't speak out of turn in that life. And you don't share your thoughts with people because you never know but i can say this if i didn't have that meeting i don't think i mean if that didn't occur i don't think i would have ever walked away from the life because i think that bond between me and my dad had to be broken and

i had to get a sense of reality um and you know i didn't hate him for it uh when it finally came that he confronted me on it because he read it in my book. I wasn't going to say anything. But then it was such an impact on my life. I said, no, I have to be honest about this. So I put it in my book. That's where he reads it. And he denies it.

And I said, Dad, remember you taught me something in life? And he said, what? He said, no matter what, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny. I said, I know you're denying this now, but it's OK. I love you. I'm not mad. I get it. I understand.

But that had such an impact on me that I think two years later, when I met my wife, that's what really kind of put the icing on the cake, as they say, for me to walk away. Did your dad, because last we left off in his story, he was going to jail until he was 100. So you say he's on parole. What happened? Did he get out? Yeah, he gets out in 2017 at the age of 100. He was the oldest inmate in the system at the time. And my dad passed away at 103 during the pandemic. He was the oldest living mob guy for sure at that time, and probably the oldest guy in the world.

Guys don't live to that age in that life. It's not conducive to a long lifestyle. Right. Right. Yeah. It was amazing. And, you know, we patched it up. I mean, I stayed with him, visited him during that time. The relationship was never exactly the same, but he accepted what I did because he knew I never hurt anybody. And, you know, there was another situation came up, Megan, where, you know, a guy became an informant and the feds came to me again. He implicated me in some things and they wanted me to cooperate with him. And I said no. And I told my father, I said, Dad, look,

if I were to cooperate, a lot of guys are going to go down. I'm not going to do that. Just tell them to leave me alone. Because I had people upset with me. There was a contract on my life from my former boss because he took it very personal when I walked away. He was really upset with me. But that backed everybody off because I said, I'm not hurting anybody. Just leave me alone. I just want to be on my own, live my life.

Nobody leaves the mob. You stay in it till you're dead, one way or the other. And you found a way out. Talk about threading the needle. So I know you've spoken about when you were in jail, there was a prison guard who walked by your cell and gave you something that I think was the beginning of your transformation. What was it? Well, yeah, I mean, I had done five years. I'm out on parole 13 months, worst 13 months of my life. People are trying to hurt me. Feds were all over me. I'm trying to get my life reorganized in L.A. I was like a fish out of water, quite honestly. And like a fool, I violate my parole. The government was really on me and they locked

me up again. And that first night, they tell me, we're going to indict you on another racketeering case. We violated your parole. You'll never see the street again, is what they told me. And they throw me in a hole in MDC in LA, and they're going to transport me back to Brooklyn in the morning. And quite honestly, Megan, it was the worst night of my life because I said, wow. I said, another case, what are they bringing up now? Number one. Number two, I'm married to this girl. She waited for me five years. We have two little babies. She's 27 years old. I'm going to lose the girl I did all of this for. I said, they can't put me out on the yard. Talk to people who want to kill me. I'm

going to spend the rest of my life in a six by eight cell. Having visited my dad for 20 years and seeing what it did, I said, you know what? I wish I could just close my eyes and not wake up. And that's how I felt. And, you know, honestly, I used to demean people that were suicidal. I was called them weak, can't face up to their troubles. I don't do that anymore. Now, I wasn't suicidal that night, but I can understand how you can reach a low point in your life where is it worth even going forward? Now, of course, I dissuade anybody from suicide, but I can understand how you can reach a low point in your life where is it worth even going forward? Now, of course, I dissuade anybody from suicide, but I know how that feeling was. That's how I felt that night. And yeah, a prison guard walked by my cell and he says, Francis,

you okay? You don't look good. And I chased him away. I said, get away from me. Leave me alone. I don't want to see any of you guys tonight. And he came back with a Bible and pushed it through the slide on the door. And I spent the next 29 months and seven days in solitary, six by eight cell, 24-7, me and God. And it was during that time, Megan, that I not only studied my Bible inside out and upside down, I had my wife send me in several books on every faith. I was studying every faith because they said, if I'm going to spend the rest of my life in this cell, I want to know where I'm going at the end of it all. And I just came out of there strongly believing in Christianity. Wow.

That guard was like an angel. I mean, truly like delivering the word of God to you. And it doesn't always happen, but it took. Like you heard it and you acted. It changed you. So would you say, you know, because you met Camille, who I know has been such a game changer in your life, you know, between Camille, the Bible, a renewed faith, or maybe a brand new faith in God, how then did you come to see this other version of yourself, this other

possibility for how your life could be? Well, you know, what I found out, there's two things in life that are so important. Number one is, I always say this, and I try to mentor a lot of young people. I go into, you know, prisons and juvenile halls and spoke at many men's ministries. And I told them, you are who you hang out with in this life. If you hang with the wrong crowd, you're going to be the wrong type of person and it will influence you. You know, I'm on the street. Obviously, I was influenced and that's the person who I was.

And I'm not blaming the others. I'm just saying that's we're all in the same boat in that regard. And secondly, is accountability is everything in life. Who you are accountable to is going to dictate the path that you serve in your life. On the street, accountable to my oath, my boss, I was a criminal. So when I come out now, I'm accountable to God first, accountable to my wife and children not to screw up so I end up back in prison. Because I will say this, look, you can take the boy out of Brooklyn. You can't always take Brooklyn out of the boy. There's a lot of times when I could react the wrong way because I still have certain instincts inside of me. But I catch myself most of the time. And I say, no, I can't do that because I'm jeopardizing the

people around me, the people that I love. And so I don't want to make a mistake. It's like, look, I'll say this and I say this in church, Megan, I have no moral issue whatsoever with taking money from the government in taxes. No moral issue whatsoever with taking money from the government and taxes. No moral issue whatsoever. Because I can do better with the money now than they can, no doubt about it. They throw all money in the toilet half the time, but I won't do it because I'm not going to jeopardize my freedom again. I'm not going to jeopardize my wife and kids and my grandkids. So you just have a different outlook. And I believe, you know, in Christianity, we believe that we're changed from the inside out. When you develop a relationship with the Lord, He's

changing you from inside out. It's not your work on the outside that's doing it. And that's why it's so important to be nourished. It's so important to, you know, to read the Word as often as you possibly can. You can never get enough of it and hang out with people that have the same beliefs as you. And that's what's done it for me. I mean, I don't attribute it to my work. I think I'm probably the most fortunate, most blessed person around because I should either be dead or in prison for the rest of my life. That's what I earned. But for some reason, I feel like you're like your dad. You're, what, 71 years old now? You look amazing. You look young.

You seem vibrant. You probably have another 30 years at least. But it's probably related to your good choices in your second half. Yeah, I think I'm 72. And my wife, I have five daughters and two sons. Well, my daughters are all fitness crazy. I mean, they're fitness experts and personal trainers. My wife, that's been her lifestyle. So they don't allow me to get off track in that regard. So, yeah, and I think we have some good DNA. I mean, my dad was one of 19 kids and all of the kids died in their late 80s, 90s.

My dad outlived them all. But, you know, so we have some good DNA also. So, you know, I think that's part of it. So you just got to watch yourself. Hey, everyone, it's me, Megyn Kelly. Mark your calendars. News Nation, Sirius XM, December 6th in a live primetime event. The News Nation Republican primary debate.

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The NewsNation Republican Primary Debate. See you on the debate stage to find News Nation on your TV. Go to join and end.com. All right. I got to ask you this because I know you're on the straight and narrow now and you found God, but you ever have the moment, you know, where you have like the nasty clerk at the store or where you're like, if you if you only knew, like, just just, you know, like, just watch it. Oh, absolutely. Megan, it happens quite a bit. And let me tell you something. Yes, we have to keep going. Oh, my gosh. I'm on social media. And some of the comments that come in, you want to like jump through the computer at them, you know, and get it, but it's crazy stuff. But yeah, I have those moments, you know, absolutely. It's like I said, you don't, you know, you don't get a lobotomy when you, when you come to Christ, you just, you just try to, you know, tell your behavior the

right way. And, and, you know, and I, I think older, when you get older too, you start to calm down a bit, at least, I don't know about Sammy, but with me, yeah. He, like, I couldn't believe he, he talked, he had a very different experience as you know, because he, he, he was murdering a lot of people. And he talked to us about the story, the first, the first murder he committed. And it was someone he knew it was someone he was like kind of close to we actually pulled the clip um i'll play it it's top five because i never thought about killing people um but uh i went through with it we did it uh one night we went out to after hour clubs we got in the car about 4 o'clock in the morning, and as we drove away, I shot him in the back of the head twice.

I didn't feel any remorse. I didn't feel anything. And I thought that was peculiar. I thought either something's wrong with me or I'm just a stone-cold killer, and I'm going to fit in the mafia perfectly. Such an interesting man. And I asked him, like, you know, what do you ever think about God, heaven, judgment? And he said, God made me a lion. He made me the way I am.

I've thought about it so many times. I've talked to my friends about it. I've done so many interviews, of course. It takes a lot for one to stand out and for obvious reasons has did. But how do you factor that in, your redemption, your relationship with Christ now and atonement? Megan, again, and I've thought about this quite a bit, and I had a very interesting meeting with Jordan Peterson, who is so analytical. He asked me, he delved, he said, Michael, how did you do certain things that you did? And I said, well, Jordan, I didn't feel good about it, I said, but I knew I had to do it. So I would kind of step outside of myself and handle what I had to handle very efficiently, and then come back to who I was. And Jordan looked at me and he says,

well, how do you know who's the real you? And I said, whoa. I said, you know what, Jordan? That's a good question. I never thought of that. But that's how I dealt with certain things that were uncomfortable for me to do. But the fact that you're able to do them, I don't know what that says, Megan, quite honestly. But, you know, the last thing that I was going to have anybody say about me was that I didn't perform or I didn't follow an order or I didn't do what I was supposed to do. So that's that's how I dealt with it differently than Sammy, obviously. Well, look, there was guys in that life. You know, I say this all the time. You talk about a Roy DeMeo.

I'm sure you heard his name. Maybe a Greg Scarpa. These were good. These were serial killers. They were serial killers. They would have been killers. Even if they weren't in the mafia, the mafia didn't turn them into that. That's who they were. You can't be that kind of person and say, well, the mob made me do it. No,

you got to be that person. And obviously the experience might be enhanced because that's a lifestyle that things like that occur, but it didn't make you that way. That's who you were. And I think what he just summed it up. He said, I'd be perfect for the mob, but he figured that out, that this is who he was and he'd be a perfect guy to be in that life. For the listening audience, that was episode 352 from July of 2022, if you want to go back and listen to it. Three, five, two. So you've been out of prison now, by my count, some 30 years. You've maintained a life on the up and up, created a whole family. You're a motivational speaker.

So what are the big takeaways for you? You talk to people in these motivational speeches, and you talk to your grandkids. What are the biggest things you've learned from this life? Well, you know, when you're determined and you have the right support, you know, the right people around you. And obviously for me, it's, it's also a faith issue. You can come out of a bad situation. It's not easy. And, you know, I may have had an advantage because like I said, I surrounded myself with the right people. And, you know, I may have had an advantage because like I said, I surrounded myself with the right people. And, um, but I think the message that I, that resonates all the time, and I've

done probably over 2000 speaking engagements, um, is that if I came out of a tough situation, you can also, and that's what people want to hear. They love a redemption story. Many people are struggling out there and it doesn't matter what walk of life. I've spoken to the most affluent people. And then obviously people that, you know, are in almost poverty life without entering a witness protection program and going through the whole, you know, ordeal that you have to go through. And the fact that I was able to do that, you know, raise a family, have a wife and children, have a career and a profession, I think it's motivating to people. And, you know, it's amazing, you know, no matter where I go, you know, I always open it up or quite often, I should say, open it up for a Q&A. And you would think all the stories, all the questions rather are mob related. They're not. The questions are, how did you do this? How did your wife react? Why did she stay with you?

What about your kids? What kind of an impact did it have on them? So I understand that so many of the questions become personal, the reason being because those people are either dealing with something in their life or they know somebody that's dealing with something. You know, that's a good point. And it's really one of those like, no matter what you're dealing with, it's almost guaranteed it's not quite as tricky as what Michael was dealing with. I mean, very, very tricky to get out of the mob with your life secured and return to your family and a life above board, you know, without crossing that criminal line after so many years on the opposite side. It's a magician type move. What about today? I mean, the mafia was really undermined by prosecutors like Rudy Giuliani, but it's not gone. So how do you how is it today? Do the mid 80s, when again, we know what happened.

And, you know, there was a time when I was in New York, Daily News, New York Post, New York Times, Newsday, every single day or every other day, story about the mob, without a doubt, one family or another who's getting busted every other day. Now I read the New York Post every morning, maybe every six months. And as a matter of fact, I think last week, 10 guys got busted or something like that. So they've gone undercover. It's not nearly what it was during my time. I know that for a fact. But it seems like they're getting smarter. You know, you don't hear too many guys on surveillance tapes and things like that. It's not going to go away in my lifetime. But you know, another thing I've learned, things happen in patterns. When I was on the street, they had 1400 agents that were assigned to all five families. We had 750 approximately made guys, guys that took the oath. You had almost two agents for every made guy. Now I believe there's less

than 100. Why? Because terrorism has become, you know, more important right now and the focus on that. So when things like that happen and some of the heat comes off, these guys are pretty resourceful and they start to build up again. And then there'll be a time, possibly, when, you know, they come down hard again because we're seeing the government is seeing more impact that the guys on the street are having. I don't know. You know, this time it might be that it was seriously wounded to the point where it'll never recover to what it was before. But I don't sell them short. I'm not saying it's over, but that's the pattern that I see, you know, that I've seen occur over the years. And last but not least, Rudy Giuliani. You know, we talked just a bit. I made a reference to how his public image has changed. There's no question he has changed himself personally. He's had some personal problems. But, you know, many of us remember what he did in New York and how he behaved after 9-11 and what kind of a mayor he was and factor all of that in and sizing

up his legacy. How do you see it? Well, again, for me, it's I don't look too much at what's going on currently in politics with him. I just know that he was a tremendous prosecutor at the time. Again, he was my enemy, but you have to give him his due. He did what he said he was going to do. And he used the laws very, very effectively. And more than that, for me, his legacy was the mayor of New York. You know, when I got violated and the marshals came and

picked me up and they were bringing me in to get in front of the judge, it was in the early 90s, it was 91, I think. We were in the car and they said, Mike, we got a little time before we have to appear in court. What do you want to do? I said, well, I've been out of New York for a while. I said, I want two things. I'd like a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee and let's go around Manhattan. I haven't seen it in a while. And I could not believe Times Square and how Rudy had cleaned it up. I mean, I grew up with that being Smut City. And I was like amazed that I said, wow, this guy really did do a job here. You know, so I was fascinated by that. You know, so that's to me, that's his legacy.

I look at, you know, him as a prosecutor, the job that he did and and the mayor of New York. And of course, after 9-11, he was tremendous. So to me, that's how I remember him. Thank you so much for telling your story and for finding a way forward and setting the example for others who have struggled in any number of ways. All the best to you. Well, Megan, thanks for having me. And like I said, I've been watching you since your days on Fox and I appreciate just your honesty and the way you, you know, you, you just carry yourself and break things out. It's for me, it's a, it's really a joy to see. So thank you. Oh, I'm flattered. It's so nice to meet you to be continued. Thanks so much for joining me today. We are off now for a few days celebrating Thanksgiving back next week.

We'll see you on Monday. In the meantime, I am so thankful for all of you listening and watching our show each day. And I hope you have a great, great Thanksgiving with your families and friends. See you Monday. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.