@michaelfranzese Explains The Colombo Crime Family Underworld
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And we are alive.
What's up, guys?
Welcome to Fed Reacts.
I'm here with the legend Michael Francis.
Um, guys, we got a short show today.
Um, Mike's got to be somewhere, and we had some technical difficulties earlier, but I think we should be good.
Uh, Mike, what's up?
Can you uh guys?
Let me give me a one in the chat if you guys can hear Mike.
He's gonna start talking right now.
What's up, Mike?
How are you?
All right, Myron, good.
I'm here in uh downtown Los Angeles, uh, not one of my favorite places, but I'm here because we have business here, but always a pleasure to speak with you.
So hopefully this is working.
Yeah, absolutely.
Uh, guys, give me ones in the chat if you guys can hear him.
Give me ones in the chat if you guys can hear him.
Okay, perfect.
They can hear him.
Awesome.
Because yeah, we were streaming.
I was acting kind of funky, man.
So I'm glad y'all can hear him.
So um, Mike, thank you so much for coming.
I know you're short on time, and we had those technical difficulties, so I'll get right into it.
This episode, I was going to be specific about the Colombo crime family.
Can you tell us about um how you got your start in the family and uh what it was like working for them?
Yeah, well, my dad was the underboss for Joe Columbo back in the 60s, so he was part of that crew, that family for from the time he got made himself.
So uh that was the family we belonged to.
And when I got proposed uh in the early 70s, and then I took the oath in 75.
Obviously, I took it uh for the Colombo family.
So that's how we started.
Okay.
So um, so your father has an interesting story with him.
He was uh, you know, working with uh Lucky Luciano and those guys back in the day.
Can you give the the audience a little bit of uh insight as to your father?
Because he was a legend in the game.
Well, my dad, yeah.
He was uh he was 103 when he passed away, so he was quite active in that life, and he goes way back to the days of Luciano and Maya Lansky and Genovice and Gambino, all those guys.
So he was uh he was kind of a legend in that life, you know.
Um, and uh I learned a lot from him, quite honestly, Myron.
You know, he was my mentor, I would say.
He was the one that proposed me, brought me into the life, and uh I learned very well because he was uh he was a master at what that life was all about.
Hopefully, you know, a lot of it wore off on me because I paid attention to him, you know.
And no matter what you do, what walk of life you're in, you gotta have a mentor that that shows you the ropes, especially in that life, which you don't survive if you don't know it well.
Uh that was kind of my uh, you know, my you know, pattern in that life.
Gotcha.
Um, can you tell us a little bit about um Joe Columbo and his situation?
Because he was assassinated um in uh in New York City.
Can you tell us a little bit about that and um how outspoken he was?
Well, yeah, I mean, uh look, I like Joey a lot.
You know, actually obviously I knew him, you know, most of my life, and uh he kind of took me under his wing when my dad went in to do a 50-year prison sentence back in 1970.
I got you know even closer with Joey, and the day he was killed, he was uh as far as I was concerned, you know, he was a good guy, liked him very much.
He was a guy with integrity in that life.
He carried himself well.
Uh, but he made some mistakes, you know.
You you're uh you're a boss of a major crime family.
You don't put yourself out there in public like he did.
You would know that, Myron.
You know, eventually caught up with him, and it was an Italian-American Civil Rights League rally.
The right the league that he formed, you know, it's kind of an anti-defamation league that I was very active in.
And we had a big rally in Columbus Circle, our second annual one back in 1971, I believe it was.
And uh that was the day that uh somebody shot him, and uh, you know, he eventually died from the wounds.
He lingered for about seven years uh in a coma, basically.
He wasn't really alive, and then he passed away.
I was about 12 steps away from him on the stage in Columbus Circle when that those shots rang out.
And it was uh it was really my introduction to that life.
It was the first time that I had seen something of that nature.
I was young, I was 20 years old, 21 years old.
So it was uh it was quite a quite an experience.
Yeah, and for the audience here, here he is right here, guys.
This is Joe Columbo here.
And and uh the person that assassinated him, if I'm not mistaken, it was an uh it was a black guy, right?
African American, his name was Jerome Johnson, yeah, and he posed as a reporter, he had credentials.
That's how he got in and got up so close to Joey.
We had a big stage set up, you know, in Columbus Circle, and it was elevated, but he got right close Up to the stage, and you know, he fired point blank and he hit him in the brain, and that was it, you know.
Yeah, and he was, if I'm not mistaken, he he was um like pretty much uh in a coma for a long time, right?
He was like pretty much a coma comatose.
Yeah, he lasted about seven years, and he never really came to, you know, from that moment on.
So it was uh it was tough, really was.
Was he not able to was he still the the boss or was he able to run the family?
No, no, he wasn't he was incoherent, you know.
He was basically in a coma.
He never came out of it.
So, you know, a lot of things happened in the family at that point.
Somebody took over.
Eventually, Carl Mine Persico took over, who was my boss.
When I got straightened out, finally, he was already in control, and um, you know, that's how that's how it went.
If my dad was home, I believe that he would have taken over because he was the underboss at that time.
And and your father was instrumental in diffusing a war, right?
If I'm not mistaken, can you tell a little bit about that?
But um, yeah, it was the uh the Gallo Proface war.
This be this was before Colombo when Joe Profaci was the boss.
Uh-huh.
And um, you know, Gallo and him didn't get along, and and Joey Gallo had some gripes about the family without getting into all the details.
So they went to war.
The Gallo faction, the Profaci faction went to war.
And as the story goes, this is what I was told.
Obviously, it's before my time.
This happened in the 50s, early 60s.
I was a kid.
Uh the gallops had kidnapped uh a couple of the uh Profaci guys, and they were holding a ransom.
And uh it was my father was one of the guys that went in and negotiated the release of the four captives because Gallo trusted my father too.
And uh eventually the war ended uh because Joey Joey Gallo went to prison, and that kind of put everything at rest.
And then Profaci uh stayed in control until he passed away in the early 60s, and that's when Joe Colombo took over.
Gotcha, gotcha.
And then he ended up getting shot um at the rally.
What ended up happening like what was that guy's why do you why'd he shoot Joe?
Like, what was his what was his purpose?
Well, listen, you know, it never no one ever knows the truth about this.
It's never been solved, but you know, the story goes that while Joey Gallo was in prison, he you know, he got close with a lot of the black guys, and that Jerome Johnson was actually doing Joey Gallo's work.
That's never been proven.
Uh Joey Gallo, who was later assassinated, also in retaliation for this, he always denied having anything to do with it.
But when he came out of prison, uh he wasn't happy with Joe Columbo being the boss.
He thought that he should have been the rightful boss, so there was friction between them.
Uh but again, it's never been proven.
If you ask people, they'll say that you know the FBI set up Joe Columbo because they were very upset.
We were picketing the FBI for for months and months and months, and I can tell you this, they were very uh very annoyed about it, we were on 69 feet and Third Avenue, and we were picketing.
We had thousands of people on the line.
There was uh, I can tell you some funny things happened, you know.
The FBI building, they were throwing water balloons down on us on the picket line.
I mean, they were so angry.
We were harassing them when they walked in the front door, they hated us being there.
So who knows, you know, what really happened.
Yeah, uh, for the audience that's wondering.
So what when uh when Joe Columbo was the boss, he basically formed uh it was like the Italian um American League, if I'm not mistaken, right?
Yeah, and and at the time, because there was such uh bias towards Italian Americans, right?
Like, oh, they're all a part of the mob, they're all criminals, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You know, Joe's like, I'm tired of this.
I'm tired of you guys, you know, you know, ostracizing us and saying that we're criminals, whatever.
So he made this league, and they would protest the FBI right in front of their building guys in downtown.
And uh, and I guess I I guess some people have you know have issues with it, like, hey, that brought the heat to us, you know what I mean?
It brought attention from the feds, and then some other people were like, No, because it's starting to get annoying because you know they're accusing people of all these crimes that they that they were innocent of.
Um, and I mean, sorry.
The way the way it started, Joe Colombo's son, Joey Jr. got arrested on some for melting down uh coins for their silver uh value.
That was the uh charge, and Joey was very upset about it.
And I was one of the first ones that he called, you know.
We got a call.
Hey, we're picketing the FBI.
I was excited because my dad had just gone into prison.
I believed he was framed for a crime he didn't commit, so I saw it as a way to help my dad.
That's how we got started.
So first day we had you know, a few people on the picket line.
In the second year, we had thousands of people on that line.
They had a close down uh Third Avenue, you know, for a section.
And at the second rally that we had where Joey got shot, we had over 50,000 people there that day.
So I mean, this was a big deal.
Yeah.
He really started some.
But again, Myron, you can't be the boss of a family and be going on late-night television shows and saying things that he was saying.
A lot of people were very annoyed with what he was doing on the street.
You know, guys on the line were very upset.
A lot of made guys were saying, hey, the FBI didn't know who we were.
Now they're taking pictures of all of us.
This is putting us all, you know, on blast.
And they were right.
It's not something that you're supposed to do.
But so he didn't, he didn't garner any goodwill by doing that with the other families, even.
Yeah, no, and and I mean, yeah, he was one of the most famous ones.
I would put John Gotti up there too, but John, you know, John was trying to.
I mean, he was kind of uh like in the light at the same time, but Joe was like actively like, no, I'm tired of the these guys, uh, talk shit about us.
So I will say this.
So how since he was the boss at the time, right?
And he was uh getting all this media attention, someone else probably had to handle all you know the criminal stuff.
Was was who was like doing the day-to-day running the actual criminal side of the organization?
No, he he was still in charge.
I mean, he had his on the boss, obviously, and and all his captains, you know.
Uh, but he was the boss.
And when you're the boss, you're the boss.
I mean, he was doing both.
You know, he was also a real estate broker, too.
He had a legitimate license, he was a broker, you know.
So, but listen, you know, we all did that.
We had our legitimate business, but we still handled our business on the street.
We all uh those of us that were in business, we we did that.
Gotcha.
So um, prior to you coming on and uh coming up with the the gas um scheme, how was the Colombo family earning predominantly?
Well, you know, listen, you do you know everybody believes that when you come into that life, they hand you a bag of money, and you know, you you're wealthy from that point on.
It's just the opposite.
You got to make your own way, and you gotta support the family.
You know, they expect you to be an earner for the family.
Now, not everybody is in a position to use that life to benefit themselves financially.
As a matter of fact, in the Colombo family, we had 115 guys, made guys, guys that actually took the oath.
Out of the 115, maybe 20 of us were real earners.
The rest of the guys were just you know trying to get by who had a no-show job, who you know had a little gambling operation, putting some money on the street, trying to get by, you know.
Maybe they were involved with a union.
Uh, so you know how we would, you know, I earned whatever scheme I came up with on the street.
I had to pay up to my boss, yeah.
You know, so if you come up with something that's on the street that's illegal, you always got to pay up to the boss.
That's how it goes.
So were we into gambling?
Yes.
Were we into Shylocking?
Yes.
Were we into uh construction and unions?
Yes.
I had two unions that I was uh basically in charge that I controlled, and anything that you can do to generate money, you do, you know.
And if you come with a big score, great, you know, and then that's how it goes.
Yeah.
Um so uh in comparison to other families.
Um, how are you guys stacking up?
I mean, at the time back in you know, in the heyday, because you got made in if I'm not mistaken, 75 or was it 76?
75.
So 75 Halloween, right?
Halloween night, 75 night 75.
Uh, and you were there during the mafia's heyday, and you you you became a made guy, then you ended up becoming a capo later on in uh eight was it um a couple years later, right?
80, yes.
So five years later, you become a capo.
In comparison to other families, how was the Colombo crime family as far as um earning?
Well, we had good earners there, but you know, we were one of the smaller families because my boss, I used to say, Hey, Genovese guys, they got 250 guys, you know, the uh the gambinos got over 200.
Uh, but us, the bananos, lucis, we were smaller, and I said, you know, why is that?
And he used to say, Well, we go for quality, not quantity.
I don't know what that means.
But anyway, I would have to say that you know, the Genovices and the Gambinos, they had more guys earning money, more guys that were knowledgeable and earning money than we had in the family.
That I have to say, because they were bigger, and you know, uh, when Pauly Castellano was in charge, he was a business guy, so he uh you know he encouraged guys to be in business, you know, it was a little different.
We were we were one of the families that were always at war.
We were kind of more the more of the violent family, you know.
I guess you'd have to say that.
But uh the bananos too was smaller, they was always they always had issues also.
So uh, but you know, listen, you worry about how you're doing individually, and you know, individually I can't complain.
I was doing pretty good.
Yeah, so you you were you if so for you, you were really into the money, uh not necessarily the worst.
So, what were you like in in the 70s, right?
With uh with one of the wars that went down with the second family war.
Um, like what were you doing?
Did you take a side?
Did you just say, you know what, no, I'm staying out of this completely?
Like, because it seemed like it was an internal thing.
So how'd you avoid that conflict?
Well, you can't stay out of it.
There was really no war in the 70s.
After Joey got killed, it was a pretty peaceful transition to Persico, because he was the guy.
It was two guys, it was either my father or it was Karmai Persigo.
Uh, but my father was doing a 50-year prison sentence, so that that put him out of it, you know.
Uh, but it was a peaceful transition.
There was no war.
The next Colombo war that we had was in the 90s.
Yes.
And that's when you know, Vicarina, who was uh acting boss while Persico was in jail, he decided he wanted to be the boss, and so uh the two factions uh you know teamed up and they uh they went to war.
So listen, when you decide leadership in that life, it's normally not by an election, you know.
If you take out the boss, you gotta be ready, and it's uh you go to war.
That's what I have.
Absolutely.
Um, so let me ask you this, because you had mentioned prison earlier and I didn't want to interrupt.
Well uh what is prison life like for a made guy?
Um obviously, you know, prisons are very race-centric, um, especially at the federal level.
How how do guys protect themselves in prison?
Well, listen, you know, for me, I can speak for myself.
You know, I had a pretty good reputation coming in because I had a lot of publicity and it was high-level publicity, you know.
I was making all of this money, I was a captain in the family.
But aside from that, Myron, uh I have to tell you this.
My father educated me.
He said, Mike, one day you're gonna go to prison.
That's what this life is all about.
You're gonna do your time at some point.
He said, I'm gonna give you three words that are gonna help you get by in prison.
He said, remember them.
Please, thank you, excuse me.
He says, you know, you you want to uh you want something from somebody?
You say, Hey, may I please have that?
You uh cut in and line in somebody, maybe your friend is in line, you go, excuse me, do you mind if I get in ahead?
Somebody gives you something, you say thank you.
The reason for that is because all these guys that never got any respect on the street, they want all the respect in prison because they're showing off with their friends.
Yeah, so you be respectful, you get a lot of respect in return.
I never had a problem in prison because you know, I I'd like to think I carried myself well, and I was nice to everybody.
John Gotti got beat up in prison, you know.
Guys that I know got beat up because you can't throw your weight around when guys are doing life and they got nothing to lose, they don't care who you are, you know.
Everybody's kind of equal in there in that regard.
So if you if you don't carry yourself the right way, you're gonna pay the price no matter who you are.
And I learned that I learned that early on from what I witnessed and from what my father told me.
So, you know, I had it probably better than most because I had so much publicity, and you know, guys are coming over me with deals, you know.
Myron, I gotta tell you something.
Before I went to prison, I never forgot a phone number or a face, because I wouldn't write anything down, but I had a you know a good memory for that.
Yeah, when I got out of prison, I couldn't remember a name or a phone number, anything else, because so many guys are telling me stories that would go in one ear and one out the other, and I just say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, nice.
And I forgot everything because every day, you know, they they're coming at you with a new deal.
The funniest thing I tell you to Myron say, you know what?
I know what I'm doing now.
Next time I go out, I'm not gonna get caught.
And I used to tell him, really, who told you that?
Who taught you that?
Because everybody in here got caught.
So how did you learn from somebody that that's uh that got caught?
I said, forget about it.
Uh you go out, you're gonna be in the same place again.
It was funny.
Forget about it.
So you were you were making a lot of money on the streets.
I mean, upwards of eight million a week uh with the gas station scheme, which uh you know puts you as one of the top earners for between but between any family, to be honest.
Um, how were you keeping all that money safe?
Like uh how are you uh were you getting bags of it?
Were you putting in a bank?
Were you burying it underground?
Like, what were you doing to keep all that money safe?
Well, you know, we we didn't only have cash, we were wiring money.
I I had a very complicated system.
I was doing exactly what uh Joe Biden is doing now with uh with all these companies that he had that have nothing, but they're all shelled companies, and he's got money.
It's a perfect money laundering scheme.
I had 18 companies, Myron, 18.
And not any, yeah, 18 companies that were licensed to collect tax on every gallon of gasoline.
But they were shell companies, so money was passing through them, and I you know, send it to wherever, either I cash in on some of it or send it to foreign banks, wherever we were putting it.
It was very complicated the way we did it because we don't want to get caught.
Um, but we had a lot of cash also, quite honestly, and I had safes in different places in the ground.
And how much were you uh passing because you you were making all this money?
What what percentage were you kicking up to the to the boss?
We had a formula that anything that I got on the street, that I didn't need help.
In other words, nobody financed me and nobody gave me anything.
It was my deal 100%.
All I needed from the family.
I said, Look, if we ever have a sit down, everybody, anybody ever challenges me, you gotta have my back.
And that's what I told my boss at the time.
I said, Look, I said, I came up with a uh a deal here that's gonna be amazing amount of money.
And he looked at me right away and he said, We don't do drugs.
I said, It's not drugs.
You know, I hate Indian do with drugs.
I said, it's gas.
I said, but here's the thing.
I said, everybody's gonna want a piece of this, and you know what happens.
When that happens, we're gonna blow it.
I said, so what you have to do, you gotta make sure I win every argument.
You gotta have my back all the way, don't play politics.
Let me win every argument, and I'll make you wealthy.
And he looked at me and he said, Show me.
And I said, I'll show you.
And within a period of time, he was I was kicking up two million dollars a week.
So that bought a lot of loyalty, I can tell you that much.
Wow, you're so you were making eight and you were kicking back up two to uh to the boss.
It's about 20%, 20 25% is the way we figured it out.
Now, let me let me ask you this.
You're making all this money, man.
You because here's the thing, you were a very savvy businessman.
You had you had the car, you had the car company, you had the gas, um, you were lending out money on the street with high interest rates.
Um, you had several legitimate businesses as well.
You had to have been garnering quite a bit of hate from other family members in the in the Columbo Crime family or other crime families.
How'd you protect yourself?
Well, you know, Myron, it's like anything else.
You know, I was one of the younger guys, and like anything else, even in legitimate business, you know, so there's a lot of resentment there when you you know you're doing well and you're younger than guys that have been around for 20, 25 years, so you have to deal with that, but you gotta deal with it diplomatically and smartly and understand the mentality of people.
So I mean, I had my issues, but I always got by with it.
And it's not a question of having to protect yourself.
Look, in that life, you always got to be on your guard.
You don't want to make a mistake that can cost you.
So you just gotta play by the rules as best you can, make the right relationships, get on the right side of the right people, make people earn, and uh, you know, you're gonna be okay for the most part.
Did you um did you end up like employing a lot of guys in the family in the Colombo Crime family to kind of keep allegiance uh and keep the jealousy out of out of play with the gas uh situation?
No, I mean I didn't employ, I had my own crew of guys, and uh, you know, they were doing well, they were all making money.
Our crew was known for uh being pretty well off that way, but no, I didn't have to take care of anybody else.
I mean, if people came to me for a favor, you know, and I could do it, I would do it if I could, as long as it didn't impose upon anything that I was doing.
Uh, but again, you know, you didn't step on anybody else's toes, and you you did your own thing, and yeah, you're gonna come up with nonsense.
Like everybody tried to get into that business.
I had to run in with John Gotti over it.
He wanted to get involved, and uh, I was able to, you know, hold him at bay in that regard.
But I said, Look, if you want me to you want to buy gas off of me, no problem.
But uh, I'll sell gas to anybody as long as I know you're gonna pay me.
Uh so you know, we put a lot of guys in business back down, too.
Gotcha.
Um so after you left the life, um, did you have any enemies or people trying to come after you uh after the fact from the maybe whether it was from the Colombo family or some or somewhere else?
The only people that were upset with me were my own people for walking away, Myron, because you can't do that, you know.
You're you're in it for life when you get in it, allegedly.
Um, so people were very upset.
My father was upset with me, quite honestly, for quite some time.
We patched it up later on.
Uh person, my boss was pretty upset with me.
Um, but I knew I was going to encounter that.
But the bottom line, I also knew I wasn't gonna hurt anybody because that's that's not what I was about.
So uh it took a lot of maneuvering not to do that to try to, you know, you may understand this to try to stay on the right side of the feds, so they really believed I was out of the life, yeah.
Um, and yet not hurt anybody.
And I I will tell you this.
I don't think anybody, I know for a fact, if you look this up, uh Myron, I don't think there's anybody that was able to construct the deal that I had and get away and and not put anybody in prison or testify against anybody, and yet you know, walk away clean.
As a matter of fact, uh John Gleason, do you know who John is?
John, what was it?
John Gleason.
He's a he was a federal prosecutor.
He was he was actually my prosecutor.
He also is the guy that put uh John Gaudy away.
He was the prosecutor on Gotti's case.
Okay, John Gleeson said, right?
Yeah, John Gleason.
He just recently wrote the book, Gotti, I think it was called Bringing Down Gotti, something like that.
Yeah, John J. He was also a federal judge.
Uh yeah, this is back in New York.
No, I don't think that's him.
That's somebody else.
No, no, that's no, it's John Gleason.
Put federal judge or prosecutor or put Gotti next to him, you'll finally see it.
Uh yeah, chief of the organized crime unit.
Yeah, this is probably that's that's him before he got appointed to the bench.
Okay, yeah, so he was an AUSC first.
He recently wrote a book.
And in the book, he basically said that Michael Francis took the government to the cleaners.
Those were that was a quote in the book.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Because it was uh I I just look I manipulated them in the end of the when they found out what I was doing, they sent me back to jail.
I did another three years and I did it in solitary, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me because when I walked out, I walked out clean, and I never hurt anybody.
And that's what I was that's what I was hoping not to do because I I wouldn't hurt.
Look, walking away from the life is one thing, hurting people that you you know walk side by side with is another thing, and uh, it wasn't in me to do that.
Yeah, and I think that that's why so many people respect you, is because you were, you know, you did your time, you didn't uh no one could really call you a rat.
You didn't put anybody else in jail, you know.
You just say, you know, I'm just gonna take the I'm just gonna do my time and get out and walk away.
So I think that's why so many people uh admire and respect you.
Um so let me ask this.
As far as um what were some of the the major because you know there were the five different crime families.
How'd you get along with with everybody?
I would assume that it was you know, crazy competition between people trying to earn whether it's you know learning lending out money, the unions.
I assume it must have been really competitive at that time.
You know, uh yes and no, but uh honestly, Myron, I got along with just about everybody.
I didn't uh you know, I was able to do my own thing, and uh look, I'm gonna be honest with you, I didn't think up this whole gas tax scheme.
It kind of uh I stumbled on it because a guy that was in the business came to me.
I never thought about being in the gas business, and he came to me with a germ of an idea that I was able to expand upon and put the right team in place to execute because there was a lot to do without having the government find out what we're doing, and so we made it so difficult for them that they just couldn't understand.
As a matter of fact, you know, one time uh two agents came to visit me at my I had a dealership, it was a Mazda dealership, and they came to visit me and they said we got to talk to you.
They brought me outside and they said, Michael, this was after about three or four years.
They said, Tell us what you're doing.
We know what you guys are doing.
If you tell us, we'll give you a pass.
We you you won't have any problem.
Yeah, like I believe that, right, Myron.
Yeah, I still guys don't know what you're talking about.
I said you want to buy a car, come inside, I'll give you a break, you know.
They got so mad at me, Myron.
They started you wouldn't want to help us, they started cursing me out.
I said, I don't know what you're talking about.
You know, so we put a system in place where they just couldn't figure it out.
I couldn't figure it out.
So um, so I didn't bother anybody, you know.
It's not like I was looking to, you know, to move in on anybody's territory, anybody.
I was doing fine on my own.
And like I said, whenever I could be courteous to somebody and do them a favor, I would do it.
You know, so I had relationships with guys in the other crews.
They came to me for things here and there.
I used to sell a lot of cars to the guys, you know, I'd give them a break.
You know, I had a dealership.
I would drive in a car that I knew everybody would want.
I knew it.
Hey, Michael, we want that.
I said, Hey, bring me the cash, drive me home.
I don't care.
You can have the car right now.
So I sold cars to people, I give them a break.
You know, you try to you try to be as diplomatic as you can until you can't.
That's how I um so man, uh so with the Columbo family, right?
Um at the time, you were one of the you were were you the number one earner, probably for the family ever?
I you know, I can't say.
I mean, look, I think it was Life Magazine or Vanity Fair said that I was the biggest earner, the mob at scenes and Al Capone.
Now, I don't know how they compute that.
That's the tag that they put on me.
But look, there was guys earning money.
I mean, I wasn't the only earner, you know, especially in the other family, Genovice and the Gambino family.
There were some really good earners there.
But I I don't know that there was ever a scheme other than drugs, you know, that we didn't get involved in in a big way.
I don't know if there was anything ever that brought in that kind of money, quite honestly, that that the gas business did.
I just don't know of it.
If there was something, I don't know of it.
Let's put it that way.
So I gotta ask this, and I know we're uh coming up here because you got to get going here soon.
And people have been asking me this, so I want to I I kind of want to get your perspective on this.
People have been asking like crazy cover this guy.
Uh I think it's Rich Klinski or Robert Kaklinski, the Iceman.
Yeah, the Iceman.
Yeah.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Because you you have a uh different perspective on this.
Um, you know, he allegedly had done all these murders, he was a hitman.
I mean, can you I'll I'll turn it to you.
You can give them a little overview who this guy is in the background.
Yeah, I'm sure they're asking because they saw the movie, and maybe they saw a documentary that he might have done.
I I can tell you this.
The movie was very much exaggerated.
He was supposed to be part of Roy DeMayo's crew, and you know, Roy DeMayo, the Gemini Lounge, he was uh he was uh he was a rough guy, let's put it that way.
One family was it was highly exaggerated in that movie.
He was not used to the extent that they showed him.
As a matter of fact, how many years I spent in that life?
I never even heard his name, never brought up, never heard it, nothing ever, until later on.
So uh it was highly exaggerated, and that's all I could say.
Yeah, trust me.
Yeah, they had they have them as some like ridiculous kill count.
Um, and and I've been like kind of nope, my bad.
Yeah, and I've been like thinking in my head, like, ah, do I want to cover this?
Because I don't know if it's uh a lot of this stuff is verified, you know.
Yeah, there's you Myron, it's not verified.
Listen, they accused my father of 40 murders, 35 to 40.
And I asked an agent once, I said, Can you give me one?
I said, Give me one.
I said, I'll give you one.
Ernie Rapolo, my father went to trial for that, and he was acquitted.
So you can't even give me one.
So, where'd you come up with that number?
You know, 35 or 40.
Because they just make it up, you know.
Now, you know, in the case of some guys, like Roy DeMo had a reputation that we knew was pretty solid.
I mean, he was a rough guy, the whole Gemini Lounge thing where where he would bring people down there, but some people said he killed 200 guys.
Do you know what you got to go through to kill 200 guys?
Yeah, where are these guys?
It's like you don't kill 200 guys within the Vietnam War, you know.
I mean, so where are all these guys you're gonna kill?
They they make it sound like this is what we did on a daily basis.
That we were out there finding people to kill.
It's not true, Myron.
Trust me.
Trust me.
What are some of the biggest um I guess stereotypes that are like not true or myths that that you know surround uh the Colombo crime family or the mafia in general, you would say.
Some of the Well, you know, again, I gave you one myth that you know, people think you come into that life and they're throwing money at you, you know, and it's just the opposite.
Nobody's throwing money.
If you don't know how to use that life to benefit you in business, well, then you're you're not going to earn any money.
As a matter of fact, it's gonna hurt you.
You know, another thing, you know, people think when you take the oath of omereta that it's an oath to lie, steal, cheat, and kill.
It's not.
The ultra of homerta means one thing silence.
You're not even supposed to admit that the life exists.
Yeah, so you don't take a you don't take an oath to come in there and be a bad guy, but but let me clean it up.
Now, you know, obviously you do things on that because we didn't believe in in abiding by the government and the law, yeah, in certain things.
We didn't believe it.
And so we did what we had to do to earn.
But you know, a lot of people think that all we did on a daily basis was beat people up and kill people, and it's not true.
Believe me, it's not true.
And most of the guys, you know, you want to avoid that, unless it's absolutely necessary, you want to avoid it.
Unfortunately, a lot of these foolish guys on tape, you hear them threatening people, and I'll break your legs and I'll do this because they're just not smart.
And it gives the impression that that's what we're doing on a daily basis because guys just they talk more than they they act.
Yeah, a few violent guys caught on wiretaps make it look like it's it's you know, they're just beating the crap out of everybody, and you know, everyone's swimming with the fishes or whatever.
But the reality is that's very bad for business, especially.
Yeah, and and for your viewers, I want to be honest with you.
I'm not, I'm not uh look.
I walked away from the life because it is a bad life, but most of the time, you know, here's the way you justify it, Myron.
When I came into that life, I was told straight out, you know, you make a mistake, you you do the wrong thing, you could pay for it, there's severe consequences.
So we understand that going in.
And that's how we kind of justify it.
Well, if we break the rules, we know this this can happen.
And if my best friend breaks the room and breaks the rules, it might be me that's called upon to do justice the way we thought it.
But this is within the family, it's within the guys that took the oath to do that.
It's not like we're running around, you know, hurting people, killing people, shooting people.
That's not true.
And I I have to say, and I'm not trying to clean anybody up.
Look, I'm out of the life, so I could talk bad about it if I want, but I'm just telling the truth.
I'm telling the truth about it.
No, absolutely.
I mean, it I mean, just from a practicality sense, I'll tell you this from a former federal investigator.
As soon as there's enormous amounts of violence, you crack down on the guys immediately.
So you guys, the mafia would not have had its reign as long as it did if they were just running around killing everybody every single day.
You know, the instances of murder and you know, hits and all this other stuff, these are you know, acts far and few between because at the end of the day, it's all about earning money.
There's a reason why, you know, so many guys that didn't get involved in super violent acts or selling drugs or whatever that would bring a lot of attention to them, and that's why the mafia was able to exist for so long, you know.
Uh absolutely, and it's a last resort.
You don't want to make it a first resort, trust me.
Yeah, no, I believe it, man.
I believe it.
Um so uh so Mike, real quick, can you tell the people about uh what you got going on in July?
Yeah, very excited, Myron.
I have uh recently come together with uh an old friend, an old acquaintance, Mike Tyson, and we're putting together a platform.
We're gonna believe launching it in July.
And the platform is basically Mike is is looking at this point in time in his life to be a benefit to people.
He wants to share his experiences and be able to uh basically the theme of the whole platform is turning adversity into an advantage.
And Mike and I are two guys from Brooklyn, we both had our share.
I think Mike has had it a little rougher than me growing up, uh, but we've been able to turn our lives around.
And now, you know, at our ages, we want to benefit people by it.
We want to give them the experience and the benefit of our experience, I should say.
So it's not only for personal development, it's also we're bringing in a team of the best qualified people that we can find here in this country.
I'm not gonna get into all the names that are all coming together to teach people how to uh to uh advance in business, whatever um uh field of business they want to go into, whether it's AI, real estate, construction, social media platforms, whatever, we have an expert that's proven themselves in every single industry.
So, along with personal development that we're gonna help people on, we're gonna also help them in their business life.
And we're creating a a platform that's gonna be hopefully a community that we believe is gonna be global.
Mike is one of the best known figures in the entire world.
I have a pretty good following.
And we're here to help people.
And we're very excited about it.
Mike is very excited about it.
So on July 22nd at the James L. Knight Theater, uh I'm sorry, James L. Knight Center in Miami.
It's attached to the Hyatt Hotel.
You probably drove by it.
We're doing uh we're launching, but it's gonna be myself, Mike, and Chaz Palmeteri, my good friend.
We'll be on stage.
We're gonna be uh, you know, talking about what we're doing.
Uh we're gonna be doing a QA.
We got a VIP section there, uh, where we're gonna be giving special gifts away, taking photographs, signing books.
It's gonna be uh a great night.
We're very excited about it, and we're very excited about the entire platform.
So I was with Mike last week.
That's why I was down by your place, and we were uh filming a lot of the content that we're putting together, and uh we're both very excited about it.
So is Jazz.
So it's gonna be a good good trio.
No, it's gonna be awesome.
And guys, if you want to meet me, I'm gonna be there as well uh on July 22nd.
You're my guest, Myron.
Yeah, I'm gonna be there, guys.
So make sure to pull up.
It's gonna be down here in Miami.
We'll probably have we're actually gonna have uh Mike and maybe uh both the mics on.
Uh Mike Tyson and Mike Frenzys might bring both of them on uh for Fresh and Fit uh a few days before the event, man.
So um, so guys, definitely if you want to meet me in person, I will be there as well, man.
So I'm I'm super hype and excited about it.
Um and we're gonna definitely gonna do another podcast on Fresh and Fit.
I'll read these chats real actually.
You know what?
Um, Mike, I know you got to go, right?
Yeah, I got five minutes.
How's that?
Okay, cool.
Perfect, perfect.
So I'll read these real fast.
Jared Choi, five bucks, appreciate that.
Lepracoon goes, get the likes up.
Yes, guys, like get the likes up.
And also, guys, go subscribe.
Mike has a YouTube channel, guys.
Uh, here, I'll show you guys right now.
And uh, did you want to talk about mob ties real quick?
Or Mob Ties is a platform that we have that's doing something similar to what Champions Corner is going to be doing.
That's what we're calling the uh platform with um uh Tyson.
But yeah, if you go to Mom Ties VIP.com, uh it'll give you the whole breakdown as to what we're doing now.
We have a great community now that I've formed a while ago.
And you know, Myron, the amazing thing about this is that people are helping one another.
They're going into business with one another, they're supporting people, you know, in so many different ways.
It's become a great community, a great platform.
And that's what gave me the idea to expand it with someone like Mike.
So that's what we're doing.
I also just uh started a new podcast called The Wise and the Wise Guy.
We launched it yesterday, and that's what me and Chaz Palmaterius.
So if you're listening in, please go to the wise and the wise guy and subscribe.
We picked up four or almost 5,000 subscribers in one day.
So we just launched it yesterday.
So a lot of people are tuning in.
I think you're gonna really enjoy it.
I've got my own YouTube platform.
I've been up there for a while, so I think people uh they certainly know.
Yeah, there's that's me and Chaz, the wise and the wise guy.
Uh you want to guess who the wise guy is?
It's it's probably you.
Yeah, yeah.
So uh yeah, we got a lot going on.
And of course, I got Franzi's wine.
If you come on July 22nd, you'll get a taste of my wine.
Um, that's Franzi's wine.com.
Yeah and uh I also in the minute I'm in the pizza business, but I've got something so special and so exciting.
I'm not gonna talk about it yet because when we launched this, uh Myron, it's unbelievable.
You've never seen anything like this in the entire industry in the entire restaurant food industry.
It's amazing what we've come across.
My partner put it all together.
Very, very excited about it.
We'll be launching that soon.
You'll be hearing a lot about it.
No, man, definitely it's it's hilarious.
It's great because uh, you know, the ex-mob guy is doing pizza, wine, wise and the wise guy podcast.
It's awesome, man.
Um, and then it says here, Lil says, uh, the most solid men on YouTube, best crossover yet.
Yeah, guys, I like I told y'all before, I really enjoyed that interview that we did uh before.
And I got even more questions.
Like I said, we're tight for time today, but when he comes back um in July, we're definitely gonna go a little bit more in depth.
Uh, and then we got Serg, I just want to say love fed it, and you are one of my mentors, man.
I appreciate that, my friend.
But Mike, I'll let you go.
I know you got uh you got a run right now.
Thank you so much for taking the time out to come on and uh discuss the Colombo Crime Family and a little bit of your involvement with it and you know how you were earning back then.
Uh, any last words for the people?
Yeah, you know, I just want to say this, Myron.
I do a lot of these interviews.
You're one of the top guys.
I really mean that.
You I like the way you come.
You come well prepared, you carry yourself well.
Anytime you want me, you got me.
So just want you to know that.
And when I come down and visit, uh, I'd love to come into your studio again.
It'd be great.
Absolutely.
It'll be great, man.
You're always welcome, and we're always happy to have you.
Uh, my my one of my chicks, she's blowing me up right now, like, ask this question, ask this question, blah, blah.
She has her book right now.
She's reading it.
So, no, man, we're definitely uh big supporters of your work.
And it's fantastic that you know you're able to kind of take a negative thing and turn it positive and you know, to teaching people that there's other ways to earn nowadays, legitimately.
So that's awesome, man.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
All right, man.
Guys, here's Michael Francis.
Go check him out.
I'm gonna put all his links down in the description.
If you guys don't know him, you better fucking know him after this one.