TRIGGERnometry - My Life as a Mafia Boss - Michael Franzese

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Get 15% off using the code TRIGGER when you buy a GALAXY PROJECTOR 2.0 at https://galaxylamps.co/trigger Michael Franzese is an American former mobster who was a caporegime in the Colombo crime family, and son of former underboss Sonny Franzese. At age 35, he was ranked as number 18 on Fortune Magazine's list of the 50 most powerful Mafia bosses in America, the youngest on the list. Then Michael did the unthinkable - he quit the mob. Today, Michael is a Christian and speaks around the globe, explaining how he survived dozens of grand jury appearances, seven years in prison and a Mafia death sentence. Buy Tickets to Michael's Live Tour here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/cc/the-re-made-man-tour-the-michael-franzese-story-2734469 Go to http://givesendgo.com/triggerpod and raise money for anything important to you. Check out Barro’s campaign here: https://www.givesendgo.com/barro Join our Premium Membership for early access, extended and ad-free content: https://triggernometry.supercast.com OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube: @xentricapc Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/#mailinglist Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You make a mistake, your best friend walks you into a room, you don't walk out again. This guy was so afraid that that was going to happen to him. He goes into a phone booth, calls his wife, tells her he loves her, and then blows his brains out. I have to pray every day not to hate Joe Biden. They stamped out organized crime. They killed my former life. So if you can do it to that powerful an organization, then you can do it with the drugs that are coming into this country, but you're not doing it. We used to work with Democrats.

they were a lot easier to corrupt. That's the truth. They were true. Republicans law and order, Democrats, corruptible. Michael Francis, welcome to Trigonometry. How's you to be here. Tell us your story. I know you probably have told it a thousand times to most people.

For our audience, it's quite new. You're probably the first person from a organized crime background that we've had. You've had a long life and you've gone out the other end now and you do work kind of to counter many other things that used to be involved in. But tell us, how are you here? Well, it goes back to my days in Brooklyn. My father, Sonny Francis, was the underboss of the Colombo family, one of the five New York-Kosanoster families, mafia families.

And very prominent figure, very high profile, always under investigation, major target of law enforcement. I describe him as kind of the John Gotti of his day, you know. So I grew up with my dad constantly being arrested, constantly, you know, going on trial. We had law enforcement around us all the time, you know, surveilling the family 24 hours a day, seven days a week for years. So I grew up hating law enforcement, hated the government, you know,

hated them, you know, because I loved my dad. He was my idol back then. And initially he didn't want that life for me, wanted me to go to school, wanted me to be a doctor, actually. And I was on that road until he got in some real trouble in the 60s, indicted three times in the state of New York, twice for grand larceny, once for murder. And that spanned over a couple of years while I'm a student.

He beat all of those cases, acquitted at trial. But then he gets indicted in federal court from masterminding a nationwide string of bank robberies. Goes to a lengthy trial, gets convicted. They sentence him to 50 years in prison. Longest sentence for a bank robbery conspiracy case ever given up to that point. 1970, loses all his appeals, shipped off to Leavenworth Penitentiary, Kansas to do his time. I'm a pre-med student at the time, and I'm devastated when dad went in. He was 50.

If you had 50 on top of that, he dies in jail, right? Joe Colombo, the boss of our family, he kind of takes me under his wing, very close with him and his family. Starting to meet a lot of my dad's friends. Mike, what are you doing going to school? If you don't help your father out, he's going to die in prison. I lose interest in school. Go see my dad in Levinworth. He was in a penitentiary.

Dad, I'm not going to school. If I don't help you out, he's going to die in here. So we kind of argued a little bit because initially he didn't want that for me, but he knew my mind was made up. And it was during that meeting that he proposed me for membership in the life. Because he said, if you're going to be on the street to help me, I want you to do it the right way. His mind the right way is to become a member. So he proposes me for membership. And I meet with the boss, and Joe Colombo had been shot, seriously wounded.

I was actually there the day he got shot. He eventually died from the wounds. A new boss took over, Tom Debella. He's dead now. And I sat with Tom. Mike, I hear you want to become a member of our life. Your father has proposed to you. Yes.

Here's the deal. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you're on call to serve this family, the Colombo family. That means if your mother is sick and dying, you're at her bedside. We call you to service. Leave your mother. You come and serve us.

From now on, we're number one in your life before anything and everything. When and if we feel you deserve this privilege and this honor to become a member, we'll let you know. So people understand. Mom is not a business. It's a whole way of life.

It's a subculture from everything else that exists. So I'm now a recruit for two and a half years. Can I just interrupt you briefly there? So you're sitting there with the boss of this crime family that your father is part of. How do you feel when that's how? Do you feel, oh, I'm about to enter something really cool. As a young man, I imagine that's kind of how you feel. You know, I felt I'm entering something that is special because it's part of what my father's part of.

So we're going to have another bond between the two of us. Because like I said, he was my idol. I really love my dad. And I just looked at it. I didn't aspire to be a mob guy all my life. You know, I was going to school, whatever. My dad didn't want me in a life. But now I took it very seriously.

This is an organization that, yeah, I'm going to be proud to be part of. I was, you know, I felt that way about it. So, and for the next two and a half years, I'm a recruit. I had to do anything and everything I was told to do to prove my self-worthy and you know I get asked the question all the time look could have been something very menial a lot of discipline in that life a lot of authority you had a meeting at eight o'clock you weren't there at 730 you're in trouble you can never be late in that life i don't care if there's an earthquake figure it out you got to be there right um drive the boss to a meeting sit in a car

three four five hours he comes out you're not there you go get a newspaper at a restroom you're in trouble a lot of stuff like that you know so um a lot of a lot of things like that and And look, I'm going to be honest, get it out of the way. The life at times is very violent. You're part of the life. You're part of the violence. It's part of proving your worth in that life. So even in this initial two-and-a-half-year period, you're being asked to, or beat people up, rough people up?

Not so much rough people up, but if serious work had to be done, you're called upon to do it. You can't say, no. Let's put it that way. And I think you know what I mean. Yeah. And so after two and a half years, prove myself worthy, Halloween night, 1975. I get called into a room with five other gentlemen. And that night, we all took an oath and became made members.

That's the expression of the Colombo family, Goshenostra. And we went into the room individually. It was a very solemn ceremony, dimly lit room late at night. They didn't want you to, they wanted you to understand the seriousness of what you were getting involved in. And I walked down, it was kind of like a horseshoe configuration. The boss was in the middle, underboss, consuliary to his left and right, two official positions, and then all the Kappa regimes are captains alongside of them. I think we had about 15 in our family at that point.

Walked down the aisle, stood in front of the boss, held out my hand, took a knife right here, cut my fingers, some blood dropped on the floor, it's a blood oath. I cupped my hands. He took a picture of a saint, Catholic altar, God, put it in my hands, lit it aflame, didn't hurt it bark quickly, was symbolic. And he said, tonight, Michael Francis, you are born again into a new life, into cousin ostrich. violate what you know about this life, betray your brothers, you will die, burn in hell like

the saint is burning in your hands. Do you accept? Yes, I do. The other five guys went in. They all took the oath. That's how it starts. And I started out. You're a soldier when you start out. That's an official position. And I was motivated to do two things. One, get my dad out of prison. I did get him out after 10 years on parole. Problem is he kept going back. He violated five times and ended up doing 40 years on the 50, all on violations. Michael, can I just, when you were, when you were taking that blood oath, was there not a part of you thinking to yourself, I'm going to be part of something right now that I'm going

to have no control over, I'm going to be stepping into a life of violence of crime, where my life is at risk every single day. Was there not a part of you that was worried about that? I don't think the word is worry. I think for some crazy reason I had, it was exhilarating. It was like, you know, I had gone through this two and a half years of sometimes drudgery, sometimes hard stuff, whatever, you know, and now I finally made it, you know, this is it. So it was more exhilarating than anything else. I didn't, you know, it's a crazy thing. You don't look at, well, I may get arrested. I may go to jail. I might get killed. You know, I don't know. That night I didn't look at it, even though I experienced a lot along the way, you know, and throughout my life,

because I showed out my dad. But it was just more exhilaration that night, quite honestly. Do you think that's a major attraction to that life, particularly for young men who, you know, Enjoy the adrenaline. Enjoy the risk-taking. That life is a life where you're going to be living on your wits. There's big rewards, but also, if things go wrong, there's the ultimate penalty. That gives you like a sense of purpose and excitement, doesn't it? No question.

No question. It's interesting that you say that because I speak to a lot of young people now. And I go into prisons. I speak to a lot of these juveniles, a lot of gangbangers. and they're so infatuated with the life, you know. Oh, Michael, you had the money, you had the cars, you had the women, you had power, prestige. And they'll point out Goodfellas and Donnie Brasco. And I said, yeah, but did you stay to see the end of the movie?

Who got killed? Who went to jail? Who lost everything? They don't see that. Young people don't see that because they think, I can handle that. It's not going to happen to me. And that's a problem because, yeah, when you're from the outside looking in, it's an attractive life. There's no question.

And do you think also as well, because young men, they want to be part of something. We all want to be part of something. But particularly for young men, they want to be part of a group. They want to be part of a gang, that sense of brotherhood. You went, you took the oath that you said you are now part of us. That must also be a huge thing for you. Absolutely huge. You know, when I get into the life, Michael, wherever you go in the world, somebody will have your back. We're everywhere. Don't ever worry about your wife, your mother, your sister, your daughter. Nobody will ever hurt them that have brothers now to protect them. You know, we have your back.

Very powerful words. You know, and people said to me, Michael, what do you miss about that life? And it's not the money and the power. I mean, I'm not complaining my life now, but it's that camaraderie among the guys. We are very tight. And aside from marriage, you know, you have, you know, a companion for life, there's nothing more powerful than this bond or this brotherhood among men. It's powerful.

And so, yeah, I missed that, you know, in a way because I was tight with my crew, tight with the guys. But, you know, there's always a downside. Yeah. Do you ever think it's, I mean, I'm going to ask the question and push back? Do you ever think it's almost like an addiction, Michael, in which, you know, you get put into a situation which is literally life or death? You make your way out of it. You almost get a high from that. You get a high off the adrenaline that you wouldn't get if you were very successful.

insurance, for example. I think that's accurate, yes. Yeah, there is a certain high that you get at certain times, yeah. So you're a made man now, and this is the point of which I'm guessing your status, your power, your income, all of these things start to rise. Is that fair? Yeah. I was fortunate.

Number one, I had a head for business, and I knew how to use that life to benefit me in business. If you use the life effectively to earn, it's a plus in that regard. And I was very aggressive on the street because I was motivated. I wanted two things. Get my dad out of prison, make money. My dad said in this life, not unlike the real world, money is power. You make money, you rise in the ranks. Same as the real world.

So I was very aggressive in that regard. And I brought some new things into the family that hadn't done before and went on to make a tremendous amount of money. In 1980, as a result of that, the boss of my family, at the time, Carmine Persico, Mike had doing a great job, and he made me a copper regime, captain. And that's a powerful position. How much money were you making? You know, combined, I had created a scheme along with a friend, or business associate, where we were defrauding the government out of tax on every gallon of gasoline.

It's an operation I ran for almost eight years. The Russian mob guys were involved with me. I pulled them into the organization. And at the height of our operation, I had a 350. gas stations are either operated or controlled. I had 18 companies that were licensed to collect the tax on every gallon of gasoline. Height of our operation was selling a half a billion gallons of gas a month, taken down 30, 40 cents a gallons. We would bring it in 7, 8, 9, 10 million a week. It's a lot of money. And I had my own jet plane. I had a helicopter. I had a house in Florida,

house in New York, house in California. And I had about 300 guys under me, really ready to do anything I tell them to do. So I had a lot of power in that. regard. I also became a major target of law enforcement. I was arrested 18 times. I was indicted seven times. I had two federal racketeering cases, one state racketeering case, and then four other cases. I went to trial five times and I beat every case. I was either acquitted or dismissed at the end of my trials. So I had a good record in that regard. So, you know, I'm doing pretty good, rising in the ranks. And quite honestly, they were, my dad was grooming me to take over a family at some point. And the boss had a son, my age, we came in at the same time. He baptized my

son. We were tight. So they were grooming us to maybe one day take over the family. That's how it was setting. And so that's what it was all about for me at that point. It's so interesting what you're talking about, because on the one hand, you've got this incredible life where people are seeing you from the outside and they're like, what more could you want, the money, the power, the cars, the houses, whatever you want, you've got it. But on the other hand, and this surely must have eaten away at you, that knowledge that not only have you made enemies on the street, you've also made enemies within the government. So you must have always been aware that you could never truly relax because the moment you let your guard down in any shape or

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100545-99. In my case, the surveillance and law enforcement started when I was five, six years old, all through my dad's history with that, right? As soon as I got involved in the life, I had a bullseye on my back because of my name. And what I found out, I had a number of undercover investigations against me. They always sending people to try to get me. What I found out is that they had a 14 agency task force that was combined of the FBI, the IRS, Queen Detective, Brooklyn, DA, you name it.

They were on you. And they were meeting in the courthouse in Uniondale, Long Island, twice a month. And their sole focus was to bring me down and put me away for life. So I lived with this. There was never a time in my life when I didn't live with constant knowledge that people were after me. And then, of course, on the street, I was a younger guy, and you always have to face resentment from the older guys. You know, it's part of the life, and especially when you're doing well. So you've got to deal with that on the street.

You've got to know how to navigate that. And then, of course, everybody I spoke to, is that a potential cop? He's an informant. There's this and that. So it was constantly on my mind. So I was able to deal with it. I wasn't paranoid. I was just very aware.

I think that's the way to put it. And I still was determined to live my life, you know, oh, Michael, you got to play low-key. Hey, I got money. I'm buying a plane. That's it. I'm buying a helicopter. I want to travel that way. And so I did it.

But I also had legitimate income, so I was able to cover things. But, you know, it was just a way of life for me, you know. It became unnatural when that stopped. I mean, nobody's looking at me. You know, I still think people are looking at me. Probably not. Probably they watch your YouTube channel now. They're looking at you.

I mean, you know, so. It was just a way of life. It was natural to me. Yeah. But it was constant. Do you think in some ways, Michael, you see, like, for instance, a family of athletes, you know, you get, you know, the dad's played football, then the son plays football, and then the grandson plays football.

Do you think there was a part of you in a way that was kind of bred for that life? You were almost built for that in certain ways, in certain ways, the temperament, seeing the way your dad handled himself, the way your dad moved through the world. No question. I mean, I, you know, I wasn't, this wasn't what I wanted to do or what I was determined to do, but I was bred for it. There's no question, because I wouldn't have lasted the way I did. You know, I wouldn't have been able to navigate it the way I did if it wasn't in me. You know, for instance, I had two brothers. My younger brother, unfortunately, had a severe drug problem. He was a street kid, but he could have never handled life. He just, it wasn't part of him. My older brother, He never even got a traffic ticket in it. He didn't want nothing to do with nothing. He didn't police or anything else. Not knocking him.

It's just it wasn't for him. You know, so that kind of got my father upset. You know, it was your older brother. He's, dad, he don't want to do it. What do you want me to do? You know? So, yeah, it must have been in me all the time and I didn't even know it. And Michael, one of the things I found very interesting

listening to you talk about this elsewhere is the idea that you are now entering a brotherhood and everyone's going to look after you. only really last so long, because it is, from what I understand, your brothers that are going to be there when you're getting put away in one way or another. If bad things are going to happen to you, they're going to be the ones in the room. Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately, you know, there's a lot of disloyalty in that life. And the disloyalty, I always say it's this, you know, you know the movie The Bronx Tale? Indeed, yeah. Great movie. Great movie. Great movie. He's a good friend of There's a line in the movie when Colloggio asked him, is it better to be loved or be feared?

And he says, well, in my case, it's better to be feared because I keep people in line. And when I spoke to Chaz, I said, Chas, you're wrong about that. And he said, what do you mean? I says, in our life, fear did keep people in line. No question about it. You know, we knew if we broke the rules, we could pay severe consequences. But what happened on the street, in our life especially, is that when the racketeering statute came out and the government got so sophisticated

and the laws that they created to get us, the fear of the mob was transferred to the fear of the government. Because now under the RICO statute, you get one count, you go down for 20 years and there's no parole. You're doing 17 and a half. But you never get one count.

You usually get 5, 6, 10, 15. You're going away forever. So they put a guy in a room and say, hey, you cooperate with us. We're going to indict you on this. We're going to convict you and you're going away for the rest of your life. We'll put you in a witness,

protection program will give you some money, change your identity, that guy's going to jail forever. You'll have a life, he's dead. What happened? Well, they got fearful, and so many guys became informants. So you're right. It was the guys that you broke bread with every day that ended up putting you in jail forever. That's what happened to the life. A lot of people blame John Gotti.

John was so outspoken. John did not destroy that life. He didn't help himself for sure because he was so outspoken. But it was the RICO statute and the government with all these new laws that they put into place the bail reform act You get locked up no bail danger to community or a flight risk no bail very hard to defend yourself from inside prison when you're fighting a major case You know Forfeiture statute They prove you put one dollar into buying your house that cost five million

They take your house It's that simple So they destroyed the life in that regard and people started to take it And that's what brought it down. That's really interesting. So it's a case of the government and the law enforcement actually doing their job. No question. That's incredible.

Unusual nowadays. Well, against us, it's not unusual. Let me tell you. Crime in the street. And you can't even believe what's going on there. You wouldn't believe it. If I told you, it'd say, come on, Michael, this is a script for a movie. It's true.

Now, we were telling you, we go to America regularly. So you know. It has to be seen to be believed. Okay. But it is happening. So you know, in Los Angeles, you can go into a store and steal under a thousand, $1,000 and walk right out of the store. Nothing happens to you.

Nothing. If you want to get toothpaste now, they got a locking key. You got to go call the attendant ticket because they got to lock everything up. Everything's being stolen. And nothing happens. But if you're an organized crime, forget it. You, you know, you're illegal gambling. You're a bookmaker.

You go to jail for 20 years. It's crazy. Was it, I mean, was it part of the organized crime families who actually controlled the streets in that they wouldn't let those things happen to the area that they looked after or they commanded. Do you see what I mean? You wouldn't let people go in and rob stores like that? The safest communities were our communities where we, there's no crime in my neighborhood. There's no crime in John Gotti's neighborhood. We wouldn't allow it. If there's any crime, it was us. But we wouldn't, you know, we wouldn't pray on our own people that way. No, it was very, very safe.

drugs, you didn't come to our neighborhood with drugs because we were not allowed to deal with the drugs. If we dealt with drugs, we die, period. With some guys doing it on a sneak here and there and there, but we were not major drug dealers. You could not get involved in it. So we kept our neighborhoods crime-free. Wouldn't happen.

You know, today it's just out of control. And on the drugs thing, I mean, obviously part of the plot of the Guardfather is there is a fight over whether they should sell drugs or not. that leads to all sorts of repercussions. Given how much money there is to be made in drugs now, do you think if the mob was around now and the way that it was then, they would have to be dealing in drugs now?

I think they are dealing in drugs to a degree now, and this is based on some information that I have, but a lot of speculation to, but you can't compare them to the cartels in Mexico. No, no. You can't compare them to what's happening in Italy, you know, with drug dealing in Italy. This major drug deal is there in mafia.

And the same with Mexico. It's not anywhere near that in the States among our guys. We're not sophisticated in that regard. You know, we're not doing it. And we didn't do it then. You know, in my era, we were told straight out you deal with drugs, you die. It was dirty business. What you saw in the Godfather, you know, the cops won't forgive us.

It's true. That's the mentality we had. So we couldn't deal with it. And I knew guys that got killed for dealing with it. So, Michael, because you were at your peak of your career in the 80s, that was also the crack cocaine epidemic in New York. That was when Pablo Escobar in Colombia was so powerful in the cartel. How did you, how was, how did you negotiate with people like that?

Was it an uneasy truce? Did you sit down and have a meeting with them going, look, you don't get involved in this, you can do this, just don't come into what we do? Yeah, absolutely. You know, you stay away from us. We're not dealing with it. We're not involved in any way. Look, cartels are powerful in Mexico.

They don't have power in New York. We would have chased them out of there if they tried. But it was that arrangement. We don't do it. And so you can't do it anywhere around us or near us. Just stay away from us. And we didn't bother them. But you saw the impact that, for instance, crack cocaine must have had on your communities.

And that must have angered the people. within, you know, the family, because drugs affect everyone. Soon it will come and addiction will hit people that you know and love. Was there not a part of that family who must have been like, you know what, let's just wipe them off the face of this earth? For instance, I'll confess this to you. My sister died of an overdose of drugs, you know, she was an addict. My brother was an addict 25 years.

I had to work to keep him alive. If it wasn't for me and my father, he would have been dead. I don't know how many times, you know, for the stuff that he got involved in. My sister, it's hard for me to even say it. Look, I lived 20 years in that life and I saw a lot of bad things. My worst things that I got involved in was hurting people because of what they did to my sister. I'd be looking for her. I see her in a bar in Queens with some bust out drug addicts in there, you know, putting a needle in her arm or between her toes.

When I walked in, I was, and I lose it, you know? You want to kill everybody in a place when they're doing that. You know, and unfortunately, that was a, I hated anything to do with drugs. And don't do drugs around me because you would have paid a price. And a lot of guys felt that way. Believe me. So it was a bad thing for us. Now, again, I get criticized.

Oh, Michael, Vito Genovese was a big drug dealer. Yes, that's true. During my era, you weren't allowed to do it. Maybe because of Vito Genovese, because of some of the things you did that the other families didn't approve of, we stopped it. You know, so, hey, I had a good friend of mine. He was a made guy for 25 years, stand-up guy all the way.

It was with my father, then with me. I'm at a funeral, and he pulls me on the side, and he says to me, I'm in trouble, Chief, and I said, what happened? He was under me. He said, I got caught in a little drug deal with an undercover agent. I got mad.

I said, what are you doing? Bob, blah, pop, you know. And he says, I'm in trouble. I know what's going to happen. I said, don't worry about it. I'm going to straighten it out. You've been around a long time. You're a stand-up guy.

I'll straighten it out. I was heading to Florida. I was doing something down here. So after the funeral, I get on my plane, I leave, right? Now, one of the horrors of that life, you walk into it. You make a mistake. Your best friend walks you into a room. You don't walk out again.

Obviously, I've seen that in my life. This guy was so afraid that that was going to happen to him. He was an old-timer. He goes into a phone bull. calls his wife, tells her he loves her, and then blows his brains out. Because of a small little drug deal that he was involved. It was nothing, no big deal. But that's how much fear we had of that business.

Or that's how much we didn't want it around us. And it was just bad. Drugs are bad. Michael, do you think when you look at your sister's addiction and also the effect that it's had, not only on your family but on other people's family, but on other people's family. That is also maybe partly the stress of living,

of having family members, mothers, fathers, well, maybe not mothers, but certainly fathers living that life because it must impact the children and the wives when you have somebody in the family. Let me tell you this. I call that life now an evil lifestyle, and I'm not calling the guy's evil.

I was one of them. I just happen to be very fortunate. But I don't know any family of any member of that life that hasn't been totally destroyed. I 100% attribute the troubles in my family to my dad's involvement in that life. My sister, if you talk, my brothers now has been clean for a lot of years, right? But his life is, I mean, he lives alone. He still has to go to AA meetings every night. He can't miss an AA meeting.

And he actually works in a rehab center, you know, helping other people. But I was angry with him because he actually got himself in trouble, went into the witness protection program, cooperated with the government, and testified against my father. A son testifying against his father. And I attribute that to his drug addiction and to some of the resentment he had for my father. I was angry with him. I hadn't seen him for 10 years or so, right?

I had a 70th birthday party. My wife invites him, and we finally unite. And my wife had more of a heart and understanding than I did for what he did. But I love my brother. Don't get me wrong. I love my brother. But when he started to talk about, I guess I didn't, I guess I navigated it differently, but the pressure and the turbulence in our life, because my mother was very difficult to get along with. She was a tough woman. She was my father's match in many ways. But the kids, it was mental torture and it was just so abusive in a way. And my brother started to describe some of his emotion to me,

and I started to even think back of some of the things my sister went through. I walked in a house one day, you know, my sister and my mother were on the floor fighting. I had to pull them apart, you know, because it was just torture for these kids. And my youngest sister, 41, was never mentally stable. She dies at 41. Family wiped out. You know, my mother, 33 years without a husband. Of course, the way she handled the kids wasn't always right.

Somehow I got through it. I don't know what happened. But when my brother started to make me realize, I said, wow, I never realized the emotional stress that you guys went through and that maybe I went through. How does it come out in me? If my wife will tell you, as a matter of fact, I didn't even believe her until two days ago. She takes a video of me in my sleep because I'm fighting in my sleep all the time.

And when she took this video, it was like a horror movie. I'm looking at it. I'm saying, is that me? And I'm actually fighting and talking. It was eerie. She showed me. So maybe that's when it comes out in me. I don't know. But to answer your question, that was a long form, to answer your question, yeah, it destroys their family.

If you can't deal with it or not built in a certain way, it's going to have a tough impact on you. And it's also the people who go into that life, you could say, well, it's their choice, but a lot of the time, they're built for it. They're making the choice. They know what they're getting into. But a kid who's maybe more sensitive, who's maybe more fragile, if you want to use that word, they can't cope with it. No, of course. My younger sister, she couldn't cope with it. She didn't want to know about it. And she didn't like my father.

He was away most of her life, but she didn't like him. My sister, Gia, who died, she was always in a battle, you know, between my father and my mother and the drugs and everything else. I hate marijuana. I don't care what anybody said. It can be a gateway drug because it was a gateway drug. because it was a gateway drug with my sister and my brother. I know it. They didn't even want to admit it, but I know for a fact it was.

So I'm not saying in every case, no, I'm not saying that, even though studies are coming out now and how harmful it can be, you know, to your brain and to your system. But I hate anything having to do with drugs. I've never taken it. I've never smoked a joint. I took one time in my life.

I was 19 to 20 years old with some girl, and she gave me half a quaylude. And that got me crazy. I said, so I'm done. I don't want to take a drug. I won't go near it. Prescription of, you know, obviously you're sick. You take a drug.

But I hate anything to do with drugs. Michael, what do we do then? Because obviously, you're in organized crime. We had prohibition. Al Capone. I mean, that didn't work. That was a colossal failure. When you see the war on drugs and...

Sorry, Michael, you winced there. Why did you wince? Well, when you... I'm trying to understand what you were saying. When you say it didn't work. Oh, prohibition? Prohibition. I said prohibition didn't work.

And we could argue that the war on drugs hasn't worked. Not working. So do you have any ideas about what you would do in order to minimize gang's involvement within drugs? Well, I would be, this could get me in trouble on a street, but I would be extremely hard on drug dealers. I would. Extremely hard. I would set an example where they're destroying, they're destroying our youth. I mean, I am tremendous.

I want to say this now politically, I don't care. I have to pray every day not to hate Joe Biden. And the reason for that, forget the politics, forget what I think of him as a president. But the fact that our southern border is so porous, and I know this firsthand, having spoken to 850 Border Patrol agents from the state of Texas. I did a seminar with them, and I was a speaker. And they confided in me that they're not even getting 10%, not even 10% of the illicit drugs

that are coming across the country, right, into our country. We have 100,000 people a year are dying from opioid and fentanyl, not only addiction, but poisoning. Because fentanyl, one little speck, like a speck of salt in an adderol, and you drop dead.

when you know this is happening, you understand that this is killing people in America. Mob guys in the street wouldn't do that. We would not do that. How can you do that? How can you allow it to happen when you have the authority right now and say, I'm shutting this border until I rid this country of drugs and really do it? And put the DEA and the drug enforcement people, you can do it. It can be done.

They stamped out organized crime. They killed my former life. It's a shadow of what it once was. So if you can do it to that powerful an organization, we practically ran the country for a long time. Okay? Then you can do it with the drugs that are coming into this country, but you're not doing it. Okay, so I have a real, because I hate drugs, because of that, I have a real resentment towards this guy. So the way to do it is enforcement and education.

It's two ways. and if they put their efforts into that, you can severely, severely reduce the amount of drug addiction and overdoses that you have in the country. It's different in prohibition. You can't put drugs and alcohol in the same place. You cannot.

Listen, I don't know if you know this. You know who made the mafia strong in America? The government. We were a bunch of street gangs until Prohibition and Capone and all these guys realized, wait a minute these people want this it's a it's a festive thing you drink you know what I mean yes you can get it addicted to alcohol but it's not the same as drugs I don't care what

anybody says it's not okay people want it they're gonna do it you had in New York alone during Prohibition in New York State alone you had 36,000 speakeas did you know that so when you have this amount of places that are serving alcohol the people you're not gonna stop them they're gonna they're gonna drink it that's it drugs is a bad thing and it should be stopped and they could do it and they know the difference between drugs and alcohol they know the difference you know all the people oh come on alcohol is the same as drugs no it's not it's not it's different drugs kill you and they can kill you immediately and i'll say this last thing another i had my youngest daughter her fiance who was going to be her

fiance, 24-year-old kid, wonderful kid, was my videography, did all my video work, right? Amazing kid, good-looking, strong, athlete, whatever. He's living in my house, in my guest house, because he was working for me and he had lived in Michigan, so he comes out to California. I'm speaking to him that night. He had to do a video that morning. I was in Chicago. He takes an adderol at 12 o'clock.

These kids take adderals. In college, they take it. Why? To stay up so they can study. It's a harmless drug in that regard. Well, this one happened to be laced with fentanyl. He got it from a friend on the street. Within 10 minutes, he drops dead on the floor of my bathroom. If you're a decent human being, how do you continue, allow this to happen when you know this is coming into our country? Drugs need to be stamped out and it needs to be enforced in the toughest way possible because it's just devastating. You mentioned the border.

It used to be within living memory that left, right, Obama, Bush, everyone agreed countries need borders, everyone agreed about border security. What happened? Very simple. There's no other way to understand or to figure out why is he doing this? Why? It's only one reason. Okay?

And I don't care what anybody says. They want to turn every state blue. They want to bring these illegal immigrants in. Now, I don't know if you know this. You don't need any ID. If you're an illegal, remember the word illegal immigrant, you don't need ID now to get on an airplane. Do you know that?

In America. You don't need an ID. They just passed. You don't have to have an ID. You don't have to have a license or anything else because you don't have one. And they'll let you on board the plane where we have to go through so much scrutiny. They're making it everything.

Eventually, they're going to give them the ability to vote. And they're going to say, hey, if you vote Republican, they're sending you back. If you vote Democrat, we're going to keep you here. They're padding the bill. They don't ever want to get out of power. There's no other real. If you can think of another reason that makes sense, tell me. I'm telling you that's what it is.

They want to flood the country with illegals that eventually get them to vote, and they want to pad the voting registration, and that'll be the, the end of it. There's no other, nothing else makes sense. Because all they want to do is stay in power. I guess if there were another reason, and by the way, I don't, your argument is persuasive. It would be, you know, you know this progressive ideology, be kind, be nice, you know, there's no such, no one's, no human is illegal, all of this stuff. Do you think maybe it's just that? Maybe they're just so well-intentioned that they do stupid stuff? So well-intentioned, then, the illegal immigrants that are living on the street,

why don't they take them into their neighborhoods and then their house? Do you know when they went into some of the affluent neighborhoods, okay, in Massachusetts and ever, that they revolted. They had a busload, I think, of 100 people, and they were in panic. They had to move them out of their town. There's no humanity in, but they're not humane at all. Joe Biden couldn't care less. You put them into his doorstep, he'll be moving them out fast than anybody else.

This is a scheme on their part. I'm telling you, no other reason that makes sense. Then this has nothing. If they were humane, I don't think you really know what's going on in the United. These people are living like animals here for them. Because what are they going to do with them?

They don't have a place to house them or anything else. It's costing billions. Even now the blue state mayors are revolting against this because they have no place to put them. I just wanted to put that argument to you to see what you said. And obviously America is about to have another election. What do you make of what's coming and how this conversation goes? Because the stakes seems higher than ever.

It's, listen, it is. The stakes, another four years of what we have now, America, you won't even want to visit there anymore. It's getting that bad. We can't go through this. Listen, it's Trump and Biden. I know that. I wish there were two other candidates. I think a lot of people did.

Because the chaos that we're going to, and it's just starting now, you know. Here it goes. I mean, for the next couple of months, right up until the election, who knows what's going to happen? I don't know. Who knows what's going to happen in the world? I'm telling you what I believe. I believe our president and our administration is so weak

that the rest of the world is going to take more advantage. I think China may go into Taiwan before Biden goes out of office. I think Iran may pull something because now they got money. Biden gave them everything. You know, who knows what they're going to do. We don't know what's going to happen in the world as a result of the United States cannot be weak. And right now we're perceived as weak. And that's bad for the entire world.

So who knows foreign and domestic, you know, what's going to happen? But I know this election cycle is going to be crazy, you know. And look, say what you want about Trump. I don't like his personality. He tweets too much. You know, he was bad with women way back when all that. Okay, you can have all of that. But he was a good president.

His policies for the United States were good during that time. There's no question. You know, we had a secure border. The rest of the world was at peace because they knew, don't mess with him, okay? We had money. Inflation now is through the roof. I experienced it myself Thanksgiving dinner. I had less people at my house and spent $200 more than I spent the year before.

And I don't notice these things until I go. Why is it so much money? You know, it's everything. Gas prices through the roof. Crime in the streets, forget it. I just bought my wife and don't. daughters, guns, you can carry these guns. Not there, I can't have it.

Excuse me, I don't have a gun in my house. I want to make sure. I'm a felon. I'm not allowed to have, but you're allowed to carry. You've got female bodyguards as well. Yeah, so they can put you down. Yeah. Because, you know, when they're on the street, I want them to be protected.

Yeah. And where I live, they're robbing people in the affluent neighborhoods now. And they're getting away with it. Nothing's going down. It's insanity. So we can't stand another four years of that. I don't know what our country will look like. So whether it be Trump or anybody but Biden, you know, I don't care.

Get Biden out of there. You mentioned Trump, and you mentioned earlier that the mob used to basically run the country. There has been a lot of talk that it was kind of hard to build any buildings in New York without dealing with your boys. Does Donald Trump have mob connections from his past? Well, it wasn't hard. It was impossible. Right.

I was being British and diplomatic about it. Yeah. No, you had to deal with the unions, and you had to deal with us because we control the unions. Whether you're Donald Trump, the Helmsleys, the Guttermans, you had to deal with us. Did Donald, see, and people look at that as, well, he's involved with organized crime. No, he wasn't. Now, I met Donald once through Roy Cohen. Roy Cohen was, you know, who he was a famous attorney, and he represented Donald.

And he represented Tony Salerno, boss of the Genevese family, tried to represent me on a case. So we had ties, but he wasn't controlled. controlled by organized crime. He didn't owe them anything in that regard. But yeah, did he pay, you know, somebody to get a sweetheart deal with the union? That was the way of doing business in New York. You had to. You weren't going to get a building. I had to deal with the, with the boss of the Jersey family where every window that went into every building in Manhattan, you had to pay us a fee. Sounds profitable. Yeah, it was. You know, cost of doing business. That was it. But, you know, We didn't control Donald Trump at all.

No, or Hamzley or any of these people. It's not true. Michael, did you ever control people in the higher echelons of government? Maybe somebody who was sitting in the Senate, you just go, you know, maybe you need to bring this up. Or maybe you don't want to do this. Absolutely. I had 18 licenses for Panamanian companies that I had to collect tax on every gallon of gasoline. I had political connection with the strongest politician in all of New York.

He was ahead of the Democratic Party. We used to work with Democrats. They were a lot easier to corrupt. That's the truth. They were true. Republicans law and order, Democrats, corruptible. No problem. Okay?

So you voted Democrat whenever you voted. Absolutely. We were strong Democrat. Yeah. We didn't like Donald Trump. Back then, we would have voted against them. We didn't want law. in order, but in that regard. But yeah, I mean, we had, look, I attended many fundraisers and,

you know, we helped him, he helped us. There's no question. And that was one of many. So when you look at the Senate and you look at these people coming out and they're talking about America and, you know, the American dream, or whatever it may be, how cynical are you of these politicians? Are you there going, yeah, I know your game. extremely cynical. Listen, I understand the game. I really do, and I get it, and I don't begrudge anybody. I understand that these politicians come in as blue-collar people,

and they go out as multimillionaires. Nancy Pelosi, okay? Multi-millionaires, she's the best stock trader in the whole world. Why is that? Maybe she has some inside information that you and I would go to jail for if we had it inside of trading. I get it. They use their position to make themselves set up in life.

I can almost understand that. But when you do that, okay, and you do that and you're hurting the people that put you in office, that I don't like. I don't like the fact that they lie. They just lie. It's so blatant now. There was a time during my life where the politicians like to have some integrity, you know, to show that they were above board.

Now, because everything is on video, everything, you can see it a minute. They just lie and lie and lie and lie and lie. It is such, the hypocrisy is, is, I just went on Rumble. And the reason I went on Rumble is because I can't talk us freely on YouTube. You know that platform, you get shadow banned and all of that. But on Rumble, you can talk because I need an outlet for what I believe in. Because I love my country. And I tell people, listen, I got seven kids and seven grandchildren.

And America is going down a very bad road. And I'm very concerned for them. I really am. And there's just people don't have any honor anymore. You know, public office used to be something of honor, I think, and integrity. And I don't see it. Not everybody. Now, you know, I hate to say this like I'm painting, you know, the canvas with one broad.

I'm not. There's a lot of people that mean well and do well. But a good percentage of them are just not in that category. And Michael, we're talking about your background. And I sense two things at the same time. Like, on the one hand, you call it an evil life that you say destroyed your family. But there's also like, there's a pride to it as well, it seems to me, or a code or a bond with the people that you were with. Am I right about that?

I think so, yeah. You know, look, there's a lot of guys there that I had good feelings for that I really liked, you know. They were, listen, I'm going to be straight out. I mean, there might have been killers because in that life you make a mistake and your best friend may kill you. And that's just the way it is. And I'm not saying that's right or wrong or whatever. The way we justify that, hey, we all took the oath. We all know what the consequences are.

We have to stay in line. So we looked at it like that. I'm not saying that's right, but that's how we viewed it at the time. But there were also guys that were good guys. You know, why do good people do bad things? That's an age-old question. Who knows? But I had pride in the life because during my era,

I think we were a force to be reckoned with. And it wasn't only, you know, when you take that oath, people think it was an oath to lie, steal, cheat, kill, murder. That's not the oath. The oath of Omerita means silence. You're never supposed to even admit that the organization exists. That's what the oath is. Now, other things happen, you know, as part of that life, obviously.

But, you know, you talk about murder. There's some guys on YouTube now, You would think that every day their assignment was go kill somebody. Go kill this guy. Go hit this guy with a baseball bat. Go do this. It's insanity. There's a guy there that says, you know, he baseball batted at 100 people.

He killed 50 people. If you're in Vietnam, you're not going to kill 50 people. How could you, where are you going to find 50 people on the street to kill one guy? You know, they just say these things. It's crazy. That's not what our life was about. Yes, if you made a mistake and it was severe enough, you may pay for it with your life. That's just the way it is.

But we didn't go around every day trying to do that. The last thing we wanted to do is violence because it's not good. It brings heat and it's problems. You know, and in our life, murder was taken very seriously. It wasn't like, okay, go kill those guys. No, wait a minute. It was discussion about it. The boss was the only one that could approve it.

It had to come from him. You just couldn't go around and kill people in that life. And so I guess I get a little upset. At times when they look at everybody, all you guys did was murder and kill and steal every day of your life. Not true. Because you had to be smart as well. You had to be really smart because if you think about it, you were running a business. But not only was it a business, it was an illegal business.

So you had to make money. You had to ensure everybody got paid. And you had to hide what you were doing from the government so that they couldn't prosecute you. Business is business. Whether you're doing it illegally or legally, you've got to, you're still going to, manage your business. And, you know, my whole gas operation was very sophisticated because, yeah, we were laundering money, we were hiding money, we didn't want to get caught because we were defroading the government. So it was a sophisticated system to do all of that and it took

management and putting the right people in place to get it done. So, and then obviously you have your legal business, but it's business. But, you know, there is, listen, there were guys there. I'm telling you that if they weren't the mobsters, they'd be very successful. You seem like one of them. Well, maybe. No, I'm serious. Thank you for that. Yeah.

Thank you. That would have been very successful. No question. There was smart guys. Hey, Frank Costello, you know who he was. Boss of the Genevieve's family. Brilliant guy. If I had to look up to a mob guy, he would be my guy.

They called him the prime minister, right? Politically connected very well. Had his major gambling operation, you know, he had around the country. extremely wealthy guy, strong business guy, and he didn't like the violence. He's, hey, if we got to do it, we got to do it, but that's not what we want to do. You know, and that's the way you approach the life, you know. But I'm telling you, get me in trouble, some of these politicians, man, Jeffrey Epstein, if you believe that that guy committed suicide, you believe in Santa Claus.

I was on the same block that he was on. There's no way you're going to be committing suicide, especially a guy that high, profile, forget it. They're watching them 24 hours. Just so happens. All the cameras went out and the guards went to sleep at the same time. Come on. Where did that come from? Wasn't us. Right. And you mentioned politics. In particular when you were talking about the world, I had the sense that in our somewhat politically correct world, there's certain things that we don't understand. But what you were saying about Trump in particular, something I've been saying for a long time, which is for America's Week, people,

people are going to take advantage. And I bet you there are lots of things you learn in that life that are actually quite useful for understanding how the world works and moving through the world. So you go around speaking to people now, young people, you speak in prisons. What did you learn? What do you have to say to people about, you know, how to conduct yourself, how to behave, how to do this, how to do that,

how to avoid the life that you were part of and, you know, stay on the Strait and Arrow? Well, you know, one of the things, just going back to where you said, Ronald Reagan, you know, he coined the phrase, peace through strength. It was the same way on the street. You wanted peace, but people had to know that don't mess with us, okay? And that's what Donald Trump and some other presidents showed about America. We have to be strong. You have to.

America cannot be weak. We have too many enemies, too many people want to take advantage of that. But, you know, number one, I dissuade these young people from the gang life, the mob life, the street life. It's a dead-end street at some point. There's no question about it. And, you know, I speak to a lot of gangbangers, went into a lot of prisons throughout my lifetime, a lot of juvenile halls.

And it's very sad to see the condition of young men today. And I believe this all has to do with the breakup of the family. That's the root cause, because these young boys and girls, they don't have mentors in their life. You know, they don't. And it's very hard to navigate life without people teaching you. My mentor was my dad.

Now, he may have been a criminal organized crime, but in the house, he taught me a lot of things. Son, be a good listener. He said, don't run your mouth. Listen to people first. Let them talk before you answer. And when you answer, make sure it's intelligent or shut up. Tell me straight out, right?

Be the last one to judge somebody. Because one day your time is going to come, and people are going to judge you the way you judge them. If you're the last one, you got a shot. If you got a first one, you're in trouble. And my life, that was very important. You were the first one to judge. The guys that I knew that the most violent,

They were the first ones to go to lose their lives. You know, so, you know, he used to tell me, be kind to the little people, be respectful to them. When he said little people, he wasn't meaning it in demeaning way. It was just his way of talking. But he said, you know, the valet parker, the waitress, you know, the person that takes your coat, be kind to them, respectful to them, treat them right. They're the people that make you strong. It's not the people on top. The people on top are looking at gun for you.

And I lived through these principles throughout my life, and it was very effective. He told me too, you go to prison, you're going to go one day. He said, remember three words. Please thank you and excuse me. He said, because everybody in jail, so many of them never got respect on the street. Now in jail, they want to throw their chest out and show that they're respectful guys. So you bunk into somebody? Excuse me.

Didn't mean that. You want to cut in the line? Please, do you mind if I get in? It's my friend over here. Somebody hand you something. Thank you. You get those three words, you don't have no trouble in prison. I never had a problem in prison.

John Gotti got beat up in prison. You're throwing your waiting around in prison with guys that are doing life. I don't care who you are. Oh, kill me. What do I got to lose? I'm going to be in this self for the rest of my life.

They don't care. I know a number of guys that were tough on the street didn't get handled well in prison. You can't do that, you know? So things that I learned from my mentor, my dad, um,

serve me very well throughout my life, whether I was on the street or afterwards. You know, and I tell these, young kids the same thing, you know. Look, you know, people say to you, Michael, you know, who are you, I was asked this morning, you know, who did you fear the most in that life? There's a guy by name of Roy DeMayo. I don't know if you ever heard of him. You know, Roy was kind of a serial killer in that life, you know, if you look him up, he was just tough

did you ever fear Roy? I said, no. I had no reason to fear Roy. Well, you know, he was a tough guy. I said, hey, any one of us could put a gun in our hand and do what we had to do. I had no reason to fear Roy de Mayo. I feared my boss because he had the power of life and death over me. If I were to make a mistake, I know that this guy can pull the trigger on me. You know, the other guys can't, and I can't defend myself. I can't defend myself against him. So, you know, you learn a lot of these things that are very, very helpful, you know.

You know, I got put in a situation one time where I was walked into a room. I didn't know if I was going to walk out. I was very scared. I don't mind telling you. That's a scary situation of being in. But it showed me that I could face death because I faced it. I was scared, but I faced it. Prepared me for walking away from that life when I knew I was going to be in trouble.

So a lot of things that I learned on the street I took to heart that helped me later on. Michael, it's been an absolutely fascinating conversation. Thank you so much. We're also going to ask questions from our locals. There are supporters. All that content will go behind the paywall. But we always end our interviews with the same question, which is, what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that we really should be?

Well, I think, again, and this is a product of me having children and grandchildren, one of the things that's really gotten me that I don't think there's enough conversation about, hopefully it's happening, is this gender-affirming surgery among minor children. it's horrific, it's mutilation. I did my research, spoke to doctors, read enough articles on it, and the fact that we're allowing it to happen is just criminal. It's criminal. There's no other way to put it.

And again, I have to say it again, you know, another thing I have with Joe Biden, Joe Biden made a statement, and I think he's just pandering to people to do this, and it's horrible to pander, to give up your integrity like this to the detriment the people is horrible. He said that banning, banning gender affirming surgery among minors

is both immoral and outrageous. And I was stunned when I heard that from a father or grandfather. How do you say this? I mean, I don't get it. There's not enough conversation about stopping this because now finally it's coming out that young people that have undergone that terrible surgery or have had puberty blockers or things like that that happens to be reversible.

And they took it at a time when they're just not mentally able to understand what's going on with them. So rather than getting therapy and guidance and proper care, they just went right to the surgery. And it's been horrible situation. I don't think we're talking enough about that. I think that has to be a major conversation. I don't know how it is in the UK. We talk about it a lot. We've covered it on the show extensively.

There's been some pushback. Yeah. I applaud you for that. No, but you're right to bring it up. I think it's... We agree with you. Put it that way. Michael, join us over on locals

where we ask your questions and continue the conversation. Since you became a Christian, how have you changed and what differences do you see in yourself now compared to who you were in the mafia?