When Michael Franzese decided to walk away from his life as a mobster in the mid ’80s, he knew it would put a target on his back.
“My boss was an old-time, old-school guy and you don’t just walk in and say, ‘Hey guys, I’m leaving.’ That would never have worked,” Michael, 74, tells Woman’s Day.
“I didn’t convince them to let me go – I never could have. My plan was to walk away quietly. Go to prison, move out to the west coast and get 5000km from New York.”
Michael, at that point a high-ranking “caporegime” in the Colombo crime family, was sentenced to a decade in prison in 1986 in relation to a gasoline bootlegging racket.
Regularly earning millions a week, he was also ordered to pay $22.5 million in restitution.
But Michael’s hope that he’d be able to leave discreetly wasn’t to be.
“My father was very upset with me, the boss put a contract on my life and the FBI came into prison and told me I was a dead man,” he remembers.
It was a dramatic end to a life that had seen Michael become what he describes as “the best possible mob guy I could be”.
PRINCE OF THE MAFIA
The son of underboss Sonny Franzese, Michael dropped out of a pre-medical degree program at Hofstra University in the early ’70s to support his family when his father was sentenced to 50 years in prison for a bank robbery.
“My dad wanted me to be a doctor more than I wanted to be, but I left willingly because I felt a very strong commitment to help him get out,” he explains.
His mother, Cristina, a cigarette girl at Manhattan’s iconic Stork Club when she met Michael’s father, was “very, very upset” about her son’s career change.
“She had a deep resentment for quite some time. She never really got over it,” he admits.
Michael helped fund the lawyers that got his father released by 1978, but Sonny would return several times before his death in 2020 aged 103.
Meanwhile, his son supported his family and became known as the “Prince of the Mafia” and by 1980 he had a crew of 300.
“I wanted to be the best possible mob guy that I could be,” admits Michael.
LIFE OF CRIME
“I had my own jet plane, a helicopter, boats, homes in Florida and California. I was young and I was really enjoying myself.”
He also had legitimate businesses, including a movie company and a restaurant.
But everything changed when he met his now wife of 40 years, Camille, in 1984.
“I fell in love and I wanted to marry her and I knew this life was extremely destructive to families,” he says.
After marrying in 1985 they were apart for eight years while he was incarcerated – it was the price he paid for his freedom.
They have three daughters and a son, ranging in ages from 27 to 39, and he’s also a grandfather.
Three of the years he spent locked up were in solitary confinement and for 11 months, his cell neighbour was Lyle Menendez, who he got to know well and believes should be freed.
In 1991, Michael became a born-again Christian and now talks in schools and to gang members.
“I tell them, don’t tell me you can’t walk away. I walked away from the biggest gang in the world,” he says.
Despite having a hit out on him when he finally left prison in 1994, Michael remained unharmed.
So how did he stay safe? He stopped going to clubs, made sure he never took the dog for a walk on the same route or visited the same restaurant.
“And I wasn’t going to hurt anybody. I didn’t want to testify. Then [NYC mayor] Rudy Giuliani put so many of my former associates in jail so a lot of the people that had it in for me were taken off the street,” he says.
“I just outlasted everybody at the end of the day.”
An Evening With Michael Franzese – Sydney July 7 & Melbourne July 9. Visit franzeselive.com.au
