The Real Reason Behind the Mob's Downfall: A Shocking Insight | Michael Franzese DSH #691

You ever deal with other cities, mobs in other cities?

I did.

California a little bit.

I mean, we kind of call these guys the Mickey Mouse mob every day, you know?

I didn't know Cali had a mob, actually.

Well, they were really from the Midwest.

Whenever I had to go to a mob-controlled city like Chicago or Kansas City or even Florida, I would have to check in with whoever was the boss there.

Whenever I went to California, they said, just do whatever you want.

All right, guys, we got Michael here today.

He just came back from Romania a few months ago, right?

Interviewed the Tates.

Yes.

How'd that go?

It was great.

I mean, they were very accommodating, both brothers.

We spent the weekend with them,

and it was great.

Great interview with both of them.

We're going back in August, actually.

I'm going to spend a couple of days with them again.

You know, I've been speaking with Andrew now for a little over a year about his cases and everything else.

So I enjoyed it.

Enjoyed meeting you both.

He finally got it dismissed, right?

No, no, no.

No, no.

No.

What happened, you know, he had first he was in jail, then he was under house arrest, then they let him go throughout the country, but he wasn't allowed to go outside of Romania.

So the lower court actually gave him permission, but then the higher court knocked it down.

Oh, wow.

So they're confined to Romania right now.

Oh, so he's still fighting it.

Yeah.

I saw some article that he beat it.

Interesting.

No, he's still fighting it.

Damn.

What was your perception of him going into that interview, and did that change afterwards?

You know,

it didn't change, but what I realized is Andrew is a pretty sensitive guy.

Yeah, you would have thought that maybe it was Tristan that was more sensitive, but Andrew, in private conversation with him, very sensitive, you know, very smart.

I mean, both brothers, they're very bright.

And I like their perspective on things, but I really enjoyed meeting them.

I mean, we could be, or we are friends, but I mean, these were guys that I would hang out with them.

Nice.

Yeah.

You've been pretty outspoken lately about Trump.

Yeah.

Listen, you know,

I think we desperately need Trump.

That's my opinion.

I think, you know, I'll tell you this.

I'm a very optimistic guy, optimistic to a point where my wife says, please, because my famous words, don't worry about it.

We're going to fix it.

Everything's going to be all right.

I've always been that way.

But I've had a pessimistic view of what's going on in this country, you know, in the last three and a half years.

And I think there's plenty of evidence to support that.

But I think we need a change.

I think Trump's the guy.

I believe Trump loves his country.

I think he wants to do good for it.

He's got the right policies.

You know, I tell people all the time, Trump and I don't go to dinner.

I met him once, maybe 35 years ago, with Roy Cohen.

It was my attorney, his attorney.

We met for a few minutes.

You know, he may not even remember that.

I don't know.

But I don't care about that.

I care about his policies for America.

And we had a good four years when he was in office, and I think we'll have the same if he comes back in.

So

that's what matters.

What was your reaction to the assassination attempt?

Were you surprised at all?

I'm very surprised, but horrified that a 20-year-old kid was able to assassinate a president because they didn't protect him.

He just happened to be

a god thing, I believe, that he survived that.

I can't even understand that.

How that could have happened,

especially with all the information that's coming out, how they knew about it, how this kid was suspicious.

All the things that are coming out now was such a gigantic failure on the part of the Secret Service and the Department of Justice, Homeland Security.

They all bear some weight on that.

But

it's frightening, quite honestly.

There's a lot of frightening information coming out after how the stock was shorted.

I don't know if you saw that.

I did.

$12 million short.

Now the Secret Service girl resigned yesterday.

She should have been fired immediately.

I think so, too.

Yeah, I mean, she got grilled so hard in Congress.

I think she...

They must have told her, you got.

Yeah, she got wrecked.

And there's potential talks of a second second shooter.

I don't know if you saw that.

I did see that.

Who knows at this point?

You know, the problem here in America:

if you're on the liberal side, you don't get held accountable to anything.

Even her, she resigned.

She should have been fired without a pension or anything else, but she'll get her pension and she'll go on to get another position, and that'll be the end of it.

And that was a catastrophic failure.

Massive.

Well, you wonder if it's a failure

by design at this point.

You know, my own experience,

you know, with the Department of Justice and its various agencies, Bureau of Prisons like that, they do do negligent things.

Everybody thinks, you know, it's a well-oiled machine and they're on top of everything.

It's not that way.

So I think it might have been a combination of both, but there certainly was negligence involved in it.

No question about it.

I know you interviewed Vivek and his take on these agencies is he wants to get rid of most of them.

Do you agree with that take?

100%.

Really?

Yeah.

I mean, we have so many wasted agencies, you know, with bureaucrats making decisions and doing things that are unnecessary.

We're over-regulated.

Small businesses don't have a shot in this country anymore.

You know,

that's why we're in such trouble.

You know, you hamper small business like you do.

The country can't survive.

Right.

Yeah, there's so many, and our tax dollars are going to them.

I don't even know what half of them do.

Neither do they.

They're just there.

Yeah.

They're just there.

I mean, FBI, I kind of get, because that's like serious crimes, you know?

Absolutely.

FBI is necessary if it's functioning properly.

of course.

Department of Justice is necessary, functioning properly.

And there are agencies, Homeland Security, of course, but we don't even know the amount of agencies that are out there with bureaucrats handling things, mostly regulation.

You know, their job is to regulate.

And what do we need all of that for?

Yeah.

I know you had some dealings with FBI, right?

Just about half my life.

Yeah.

What was your overall experience and takeaway from that, looking at it from your point of of view now?

Well, listen, you know, I have to look at it differently.

You know, I'm on the other side of the fence now, meaning that I'm not a criminal anymore.

But for many years of my life, I was involved in, you know, organized crime.

So I kind of

can understand a little bit how agents can cross the line a little bit to get people that they think are, you know, involved in criminal activity.

I don't agree with it.

I don't ever believe that law enforcement is allowed to break the law to go after lawbreakers lawbreakers because they have enough tools and ammunition and weapons that they should be able to do it legally.

That's it.

Because if you allow them to break the law against, they'll do it with anybody.

You know, it serves their purpose.

So, but I can kind of understand that a little bit.

Okay.

And I had run-ins with the FBI, obviously.

I was arrested 18 times, you know, mostly federal crimes.

And went to trial five times.

I had seven indictments.

So, and most of it was federal.

So I had a different impression of them back then.

I believe the FBI was complicit in my father's frame-up.

Wow.

My father was framed, 1,000%.

I'll take that to my grave.

And they were complicit in that.

So I never liked them growing up, obviously, and throughout my time in that life.

But, you know, there were a lot of good agents also.

You know, now, I mean, I'm friends with Joe Pistone, Donnie Brasco, who did an incredible job, you know, six years on the street undercover like that.

He was good at what he did.

And I always tell people he did his job better than we did ours at that time.

We didn't know who he was.

So, you know, there are a lot of good agents out there.

There are a lot of good cops out there.

And I don't want to ever, you know, put the,

draw everybody with the same brush.

But I think it all starts at the top.

It all starts at the top.

If the agencies are bad at the top or corrupt at the top, it trickles down.

Did you run into Donnie Brosco when you were on the streets?

I did one time we met.

Wow.

Yes, one time.

Oh, yeah.

He reminded me, actually.

Yeah, he came.

I had an auto dealership back then, and he came with another maid guy, a friend of mine.

We spent a couple hours together.

I said, Joe, you know, I'm glad that was the only time we ever met, you know, because he originally started out going after the Columbos, and I was part of that crew.

And you had no idea he was undercover?

No.

No.

Oh, he was brought by a good friend.

I figured he was good.

Did you ever run into undercovers?

I had...

a huge undercover investigation on me.

It was all about professional boxing, organized crime, infiltration into boxing.

It lasted about a year, and I had two undercover agents on me that became friendly with me.

Fortunately, they couldn't indict me.

But you knew they were undercover at the time?

Oh, after?

I have no idea.

They had 83 tape recordings on me.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

They used to wear Niagara tape, and we got very friendly, but fortunately, you know,

I never said anything on the tape that could damage me.

Wow.

So you were very aware of.

You know, I was always careful how I I spoke.

You know, I never got caught on wiretaps or anything like that.

And I attribute that to my father's teaching.

You know, I used to pick up a phone and say, Mike, this is a cop.

Yeah, just like that.

He said, don't ever talk on the phone.

It's a cop.

And it sunk in, you know, and even if I didn't know somebody well, I was very careful with my conversation.

I brought these guys to meet Don King.

Wow.

We were in the room with Don.

And I had been with them for about eight months prior to that, prior to bringing them to Don King.

But when I brought him up to his offices, I said, Don, I know these guys for about eight months.

I can't trace them further than that.

They want to be in the business.

They allegedly have $15 million in the bank.

The FBI actually set up an account and they gave me information and documents to show that they had 15 million.

Yeah.

So they went that far.

But I said, Don, play everything straight at this point.

Don't say anything out of the way.

Say everything straight and let's test it and see where it goes.

And so we had a great conversation.

I couldn't do anything with it.

Damn.

But then what happened?

You know how that investigation shut down?

Boombo Mancini, he was lightweight.

He was in a fight and he killed somebody in the ring.

Damn.

Yeah.

And after that, the FBI got scared.

They said, hey, if we go along with this and God forbid somebody gets killed in the ring and we're complicit, you know, even in an undercover operation, it would be very bad.

So they killed the investigation.

Wow, that's why they killed it?

Yeah.

Interesting.

Do you think sports like boxing are still rigged to this day?

You know, I think it's

ruling bodies that are rigged.

I don't think it's organized crime anymore.

You know, we're not involved.

We were heavily involved at one point, but not today.

But it needs an overhauling because the people at the top are easy to get to.

Yeah.

So that NBA ref that got caught betting on his games, do you think the mob was involved with that guy?

No.

I know he wasn't.

Oh, it wasn't?

Yeah, what was his name again?

Tim Donahue?

Yeah, Tim Donahue.

Tim Donahue.

Donahue.

Yeah,

I had several conversations with him.

And no, we weren't involved with him.

He was just doing his thing.

Yeah, because they've made it probably way harder to get away with that, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, there's too much money on the line, reputational risk at this point.

If they found out the games are rigged, it would ruin the whole.

Yeah, you know, but you've got to understand, you know, a referee can really

do damage because remember, it's never about wins or losses.

It's always about the point spread.

So if you're in an NBA game, you're a referee, and let's say the Lakers favor to win by 10 points, and you bet against them or you bet against the spread.

I mean, we'll go back.

I don't want to mention any names now, but Kobe Bryant.

How do you regulate 10 points?

How do you maneuver 10 points?

You keep them on a bench a little bit longer.

Because you can call a foul every time they go down the field or down the court or you don't have to call a foul.

Referees have a lot of power in that way.

So if a ref is doing that and making side bets and keeping quiet, tough to catch.

Yeah.

Was bookmaking and sports spending a big revenue driver for the mob?

Very big.

Yeah.

Yeah, I've heard stories.

Chris Colombo, who you've interviewed with his family.

Chris well, yeah.

Yeah, a bit huge in that, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, Chris was a good bookie.

Yeah.

Did you deal with him a lot?

No, he was younger than me.

I dealt with his brothers, Anthony and Joey Jr., but I love the family.

His dad, when my dad went to prison, my dad was his underboss.

When my dad went to prison, Joey took me under his wing, and I love the guy.

He was a mentor to me also, and I love the family.

And Chris is a great guy.

He really is.

They're good people.

Nice.

Yeah, what was that like getting an interview?

You probably didn't talk to him for a while, right?

No, I hadn't seen him for, gosh.

I think he's probably 10, 15 years younger than me.

And he was, I think he was nine or 10 years old when his dad got shot.

So we hadn't spoken, but we become pretty close now.

Damn, he was 10 years old.

He witnessed that incident too, right?

Yeah.

That's scarring as a kid.

I was on the stage just walking off the stage when the shots rang out.

Yeah, because he had handed me some brochures.

He had a huge rally that day.

It was like, I don't know, 50,000 people there.

So the last words he said to me, I'll never forget, he handed me some brochures and he said, Michael, give them out around Central Park.

And then as I was walking away, he says, and we're going to use this league to help your father get out of jail.

Dang.

And I went, I started walking down the steps, and then the shots rang out.

His son yelled out, Joey's been hit.

Joey's been hit.

And that was it.

Crazy.

Were there any signs leading up to that or is total shock to you guys?

well you know listen i was 20 years old so it wasn't like i was really involved in a life at that point but um

you know there was talk around there that people were upset that he was bringing so much heat you know but look he was doing the right thing i mean italian americans were harassed at that time and his son that was a total nonsense case i don't know if you know how why that league started no i don't his son joey jr was arrested on you know melting down coins for their silver value and it was a nonsense case you know and so his father said, hey, we're not going to stand for this anymore.

You know, they're abusing us.

So he started the league, tremendously successful, helped out a lot of people.

And I think the FBI was very upset about it.

There was talk on the street, but if you ask me, I think he was set up by the FBI.

Really?

Yeah.

Why would they want him dead?

Because we were picketing the FBI, picketing, you know, in front of the FBI building for a year, over a year, and thousands of people, and making him look bad, making the Department of Justice look bad because we were gaining so much momentum.

And Joey, in the meantime, is helping out a lot of young kids.

He was helping camps.

He was doing a lot for people.

And,

you know, I really believe, if you look into it, I believe it was a setup.

Because the guy that killed him, the guy that shot him, he had press credentials and everything else.

It just didn't sound right to me.

They've never proven anything, obviously.

And in that life, you easily prove there's so many informants.

If they knew who shot him, they would have came forward by now.

That's true.

Yeah.

So I think it was the FBI.

So the FBI had informants in the mob, but what about the other way around?

Us having informants in the FBI?

Yeah.

I wouldn't call it that, but you got to understand something.

In New York, we had 750 made guys that comprised all five families.

And we had relatives that were in law enforcement.

We had neighbors that we knew were in law enforcement.

So did we get information?

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, I had one precinct in Brooklyn.

I won't mention it.

but at two o'clock in the morning, I can go in there and open the files and look at anything I want to do.

Wow.

So when you were getting arrested, you kind of knew it was coming then.

Pretty much, yeah.

Nice.

We knew.

I mean, we knew when there was investigations on us, and we got as much information as we could.

That gives you an edge because then you could kind of plan what to do.

A little edge.

I mean, listen,

they still beat us, but it was helpful.

Yeah, some of the evidence was probably too much to overcome.

Yeah.

But it seems like a lot of these bosses, the downfall is the attention, right?

Absolutely.

You know, people think when you take the oath of Omerta, which is the oath we take, that it's an oath to lie, steal, cheat, and kill.

It's not the oath.

Obviously, it's a street life.

Things happen.

But the oath is really silence.

You're not even supposed to admit that the life exists.

You're supposed to be totally undercover and just, that's it.

You're not supposed to be showy or anything like that.

And of course, guys were.

I was a little bit showy myself.

But

if you stay low-key, you got a better shot.

But once the racketeering laws came in, it was almost impossible.

Even if you stayed low-key, it was impossible.

So you would attribute the downfall to the racketeering law?

100%.

Yeah, because that got like 20 people at once, so it just wiped out the whole family pretty much.

It was a very difficult law to defend.

I know I had two federal racketeering cases, one state, state of Florida, very difficult to

defend.

They brought, you were able to charge a person double jeopardy, which was obviously

wasn't allowed before that.

It was just, it was just too much.

And the consequences, the sentences were too severe.

Insane.

Insane, you know, until today.

I believe it's unconstitutional, but they still don't have to do it.

A lot of people do.

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

Why did Florida go after you?

Because you were in New York, right?

Well, I was selling gas in Florida.

I had an operation in Florida.

Oh, that's what you became known for, right?

The gas.

Yeah.

So how long did that last?

Almost eight years.

Wow.

That's the longest scam I've ever heard.

Well, it was long.

Usually those last like a few months, right?

Yeah.

No, we had a pretty good operation.

Wow.

Eight years.

That must be one of the longest in the mob history.

Well, I don't know.

Never measured it in that way, you know, but it was pretty lucrative, yeah.

Nice.

Yeah, that's how you got on all the lists, right?

Because of that one.

Yeah.

And that's how you climbed the ranks.

Yeah.

Did you want to become the ultimate boss?

No.

You never did?

No.

You got to understand something.

I was one of the younger guys.

You know, when I was flying high, I had my own plane.

I had my own helicopter.

I had a house in Florida, a house in New York, a house in Marina Del Rey, California.

Wow.

And I'm enjoying myself, you know, living a life.

If you're a boss, half the time you're stuck in a social club in Brooklyn dealing with everybody else's problems.

I wasn't interested in that.

And plus, honestly, I didn't need it.

I was making plenty of money.

You know, I was a captain at the time.

I didn't want to be a boss.

Yeah, the risk to reward of being a boss doesn't seem there looking back at it now.

No, well, especially after the racketeering law came in.

But it's a big job to be the boss.

I mean, you've got a lot of guys you're concerned with, and a lot of work.

Do you think they'll ever come back to where they were in the past, the families?

I don't believe so, no.

You think they're done?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

You know, the racketeering laws are too severe.

The golden years of my former life were really from the mid to the late 40s right through to the mid 80s when the racketeering law really took effect.

Within that time, those golden years, we had a lot of control, a lot of power.

We had a lot of influence in the country.

But once Rico came in, forget it.

Yeah, it almost seems like it's not worth joining these days.

It's not.

Just like you're good, I don't know what the percentage, but there's a good chance you end up in jail or dead.

100%.

You're not going to last in that life.

No way.

I mean, very few guys you know are still alive, right?

I've heard you say that.

We're all dead.

Wow.

Dead or in prison, maybe.

You know, they had that Fortune magazine list.

I don't know if you ever saw that.

There was 50 of us on there, 50 biggest and most powerful bosses, which was, don't ask me how they came to that conclusion.

They didn't ask for our tax returns, but sold a lot of magazines.

But 48 of them are dead.

Crazy.

The 49th is in prison, and I'm the only one alive and free.

Who's the 49th?

I figured it was an old-time guy.

I forget who he is.

I don't even know why he was on the list, but I forget who he was.

But he's still in prison.

I know that.

Dang.

Yeah, I think he's 90 or something like that.

91.

So are you the only one you know that you came up up with?

I'm the only one, alive and free.

You and Sammy, that's it, pretty much.

Well, Sammy wasn't on the list, but yeah, Sammy.

Oh, he wasn't?

No.

I thought he was pretty high up.

Well, he wasn't.

That's what I'm saying.

That list, I don't know how they made it up, you know, but he wasn't on that list.

Interesting.

Well, they say the IRS actually has access to view your bank accounts and stuff, but who knows?

Who knows?

I mean,

I mean, a lot of guys belonged on there, but some, I don't know.

Yeah, so if you had to make an actual list, how accurate was that compared to that list from what you saw?

It was, I would say, 50% maybe.

Oh, that's it?

Yeah.

Oh, so it was way off.

Yeah.

Okay.

Damn.

Did you ever deal with other cities, mobs in other cities?

I did.

California a little bit.

I mean, we kind of call these guys the Mickey Mouse mob out there, you know?

I didn't know Cali had a mob, actually.

Well, they were really from the Midwest.

They really weren't from California itself.

Well, there were a couple of guys out here, though.

And I don't mean to demean them, but, you know, we didn't.

I'll give you an example.

Whenever I had to go to

a mob-controlled city like Chicago or Kansas City or even Florida, I would have to check in with whoever was the boss there

and let them know that I was in town.

Whenever I went to California, they said, just do whatever you want out there.

Interesting.

Yeah.

But yeah, I dealt with people in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Florida.

Was the Boston Philly?

Was that Joey?

Not during my time.

Okay.

I just had him on.

He was interesting.

And I've heard you and him have some drama, but.

Well, he started the drama.

Yeah.

Did you guys resolve that?

No.

Because I know you had drama with Sammy and you resolved that.

So is that something you want to do with Joey?

No.

Really?

No.

It got too personal there?

You know, I'd rather not get into it because my view of this is if you have something to say to me, come and say it to my face.

Right.

To be bickering on social media is like,

it's demeaning, number one.

So if you have something to say, come and see me.

I'm very public.

You know where I am.

I liked how you and Sammy handled it.

Yeah.

Well, Sammy and I patched it up.

Yeah, that was cool to shout out to Patrick.

And

we did it face to face, by the way.

Right, yeah.

Yeah, shout out to Patrick for organizing that.

Yeah.

Because that could have gotten bad, but that was cool to see.

Yeah.

But you seem like you don't really have any enemies or regrets these days.

Any enemies?

Let's put it this way.

I don't intentionally make enemies.

You know, I don't have any animosity against anybody.

And I don't think too many people have it against me, I mean, that I know of anyway.

So, no.

You know, look,

you know,

the mob genre on social media got a little bit out of hand with people, but I think it's calmed down quite a bit now.

You know, I understand it, but it's calmed down.

Yeah.

And you're big on religion now.

You're pushing the NSC a lot.

And you found that in prison?

You know, people say, did you find God in prison?

I mean, look, I grew up a Catholic, so I always believed in God.

I didn't have a relationship with Jesus, and that's what Christianity is all about.

It's about relationship, not rules, regulations, and all of that.

And, you know, I married a young girl who was a very strong Christian.

We're married 39 years now, this week, actually.

Nice.

And her mom was a strong Christian, and they had a powerful influence on me.

But when I was in solitary confinement for quite a long time, that's when I started reading the Bible and started to get real interested and really looked for evidence to support everything that I've been told.

And for me, it worked.

And,

you know, I say this all the time.

I'm certainly not the best Christian.

I mean, you know, there's an old saying, you could take the boy out of Brooklyn, you can't take Brooklyn out of the boy all the time.

Not all the way, anyway.

But my faith is rock solid.

Nice.

I mean,

you couldn't convince me of anything else.

How long were you in solitary?

29 months and seven days.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

So you read the Bible like back front to back 10 times.

Many times.

Yeah.

Do you think that's something that should still be legal to this day, long-term solitary confinement?

You know, I'm dead set against it for young people.

I think it'll destroy them emotionally.

I saw a lot of bad things go on in there with guys that couldn't handle it, and I don't demean them.

I understand it.

You know, isolation could be torturous.

And unless somebody is such a danger to everybody around them and maybe a danger to themselves, I don't think they should be in solitary, especially young people.

There's got to be another way to deal with it.

I could barely handle all my own thoughts for a night.

I can't do it.

A lot of people say that.

You know, how did you do it, Michael?

Well, listen, they didn't say, hey, do you want to stay in solitary or do you want to get out?

I had no choice, you know, so you do the best you can.

But listen, it was my faith, my Bible, and all the books my wife would send me in on my faith and other faiths that I studied.

And my determination to get home to my wife and children.

That's what kept me going.

Yeah, shout out to your wife for sticking through with you that period.

That's awesome.

Well, she's the main story.

Yeah, I don't think a lot of wives would have done that for that long.

Not many.

If any.

Yeah, you found it.

I know one other.

One other.

Oh, that's it?

Yeah.

You found a real one.

Yeah, I hope they really changed that law because most people, I would say, you're a minority, go crazy in there.

They won't change it.

Trust me.

You don't think so?

No.

How come?

Because it's a form of retribution within the federal system.

Hey, you do bad, you're going in a hole.

So they won't do it because what else are they going to do to you?

How could they punish you in prison if you're already in prison?

What else are they going to do?

Why'd you get sent there in the first place?

I was always in administrative detention.

It was two reasons.

Number one, they used it as an excuse because I had walked away from the mob and they said that there was a contract on my life and they weren't going to be responsible for it.

But the bottom line is they were pretty upset with me because they wanted me to cooperate to a level and I refused.

And, you know, they violated my parole, threw me back in prison, and kept me in solitary.

Okay.

That makes sense from their point of view.

Since you left, there's probably guys in there trying to hurt you or potentially kill you, right?

It wasn't in there.

I mean, I never had a problem in prison, but it was from the outside.

They said, you know, contract on your life.

And, you know, my former boss, who was very upset when I walked away, doesn't know that.

He and I were close.

And he took it very personal when I left.

And, of course, people thought I was going to become a major witness who walks away and doesn't.

go into the witness protection program.

But I never did that, and that's not what I wanted to do.

I had no intention of doing that, but they don't know that.

So there was word on the street until it cleared up and they realized that I was really walking away.

That was my whole deal.

Then everything kind of slacked on.

Did you ever rekindle with your old boss before he passed?

No.

Because he was away.

You know, he got 100 years on the commission case.

Damn.

Yeah, and he died in prison in 2019.

Wow.

Do you wish you could have got some final words with him?

Yeah.

I mean, and his son was my Gumbata.

He baptized my son.

Oh, wow.

But he's doing life in prison.

He's my age.

He's doing life.

Everybody's gone.

Jeez.

That's a shame.

Yeah, he's doing life, so I haven't been able to speak to him.

You know,

the life has been devastated.

Yeah.

No question.

Seems like it

doesn't seem to be many happy endings.

No.

Did you know that going into it?

Well, I saw what happened to my dad.

You know, I got into that life strictly to help my father.

I didn't get into the life because I wanted to be a mobster.

I grew up in it.

I knew what my my dad was all about.

But if you would have said to me when I was 14, 15, 16, what do you want to do?

I want to play center field for the New York Yankees.

Ricky Mannel was like my idol, and I was an athlete.

I wasn't good enough to do that, but I had no interest whatsoever in following my dad into that life.

I was a pre-med student.

I was going to be a doctor.

But when he went away, you know, I got a 50-year sentence when he was 50 years old.

That's a death sentence.

So through a series of circumstances,

you know, he ended up, Joe Colombo had a powerful influence on me.

I got involved with the league at the time.

I saw it as a way to help my father.

I visited my father in Levmore and said, dad, I'm not going to school.

I'm going to help you out.

You're going to die in here.

And that's when things started to change.

Wow.

What's the next 30 years for you?

I know you got great genetics.

Your dad lived to 103.

You're 70 now, right?

I'm 73.

73?

Yeah.

So he's got, what, 40 on me?

No.

30 on me.

30, yeah.

You got to pass 103.

Well, let's hope, right?

If I'm in good shape, I'd look forward to that.

You're looking great, man.

All the comments talk about how good you look for your age.

Yeah.

Blessed.

You're going to start speaking, launch a book, do all that stuff?

I've been speaking for the past 25 years.

I've written five books.

Jeez.

Yeah, I've got a big

social media presence now on YouTube.

Crazy with YouTube.

Yeah, you're crushing it on YouTube.

Well, you know, COVID comes in.

I had 43 speaking dates canceled that year.

So my team calls me up.

Well, Michael, what are you going to do?

I said, nothing.

I'm going to stay home.

I haven't been home like this in 25 years.

I'm always traveling.

No, you can't do that.

You've got to go on YouTube.

I said, I'm not going on YouTube.

I'm not social media.

I don't do that.

Took them about three months to convince me.

I finally went on, I think, in August of the year, the pandemic, and it just worked out.

I think timing and everything else.

Yeah, you're crushing it.

So, yeah, so now we're doing that.

We're on Rumble.

We're on Instagram.

My wife handles Instagram.

I don't get involved in that.

And I have a team for, you know, both the other platforms.

I'm on TikTok.

I've never even went into my,

I don't even, I don't even know what's on there.

Honestly, with my team, they get, Michael, you got X amount of followers.

I said, I don't care.

It's not me.

I like Rumble, though.

Shout out to Rumble.

Rumble is good.

Yeah.

You can speak.

You can speak whatever you want.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's very rare these days, other than Twitter.

You know, one thing's, yeah, Twitter's great.

One thing I noticed about Rumble, people are passionate.

Oh, yeah.

I get comments like would be three pages long

if they were going to write a experience.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's amazing yeah it's easy to get views there too all my videos are getting like 100k there yeah youtube

i'm shadow banned really yeah

i we've done well we got a million three hundred thousand followers now but uh i've been shadow banned on that yeah for sure

any dream interviews you want people on your list

you know um i mean we did some great ones i mean we did uh jordan peterson you know this gentleman yesterday steve bartlett well i was on his channel yeah we've done a lot of good ones i'd love to get on rogan oh yeah he did about a 10-minute thing on me.

Really?

Yeah, but he's never invited me on.

We haven't really pushed to be on, but I'd love to be on Rogan.

I might be able to help you there.

I'd appreciate that.

Yeah, my friend Billy Carson just went on there.

Really?

Yeah, did you see that one?

No, I didn't.

Yeah, he's had a lot of viral ones lately.

I mean, you can't top Rogan.

Yeah.

But if you can do that, I'd appreciate it.

I'd love to have a conversation with him.

Yeah, I'll see what I can do.

First of all, I love his take on everything.

You know, he's pretty well right on.

He speaks his mind, no nonsense.

I like that.

Yeah, that's rare these days.

A lot of these podcasters, unfortunately, they rely on sponsorship money.

Yeah.

But guys like Rogan that have FU money, they don't care about it.

They don't care.

Yeah.

So he can say whatever he wants.

I love that.

Absolutely.

Michael, it's been awesome.

Where can people find you, man?

Well, YouTube, you know, I think it's at Michael Francis.

Same with Rumble, Instagram, X now.

And I have a website, michaelfrancis.com.

Where else?

I'm doing it.

I got a documentary coming up that I did.

You know, it's funny.

I think it's called The Five Families or something like that.

So I see it and I said, oh, look, Cam, there's another documentary coming up.

So I watch the trailer and I'm in it.

When did I do this one?

Damn, I've done so many of them.

I don't even remember.

But yeah, I interviewed about a year and a half ago.

Okay.

It's coming out.

It's called Five Families, yeah.

A fellow by the name of Selwyn Robb, who I know well, wrote a book, Five Families.

Brilliant book on that life.

He was a great guy and he really did his research.

And so they made a documentary out of it and they had me speak about the Colombo family.

Nice.

But I forgot about it.

I just did one for the History Channel a couple of days ago.

So I don't even remember that I do these things.

Oh, man.

You are so busy, man.

Well, check it out, though.

I'll link the documentary below, too.

Thanks for coming on.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks for watching, guys.

See you tomorrow.