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May 25, 2023 - MyronGainesX
41:25
@michaelfranzese Explains The Colombo Crime Family Underworld
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Time Text
And we are live.
What's up, guys?
Welcome to FedReax.
I'm here with the legend, Michael Francis.
Guys, we've got a short show today.
Mike's got to be somewhere, and we had some technical difficulties earlier, but I think we should be good.
Mike, what's up?
Can you guys, let me give me a one in the chat if you guys can hear Mike.
He's going to start talking right now.
What's up, Mike?
How are you?
All right, Myron.
Good.
I'm here in downtown Los Angeles.
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.
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 was acting kind of funky, man.
So I'm glad y'all can hear him.
So, 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 is going to be specific about the Colombo crime family.
Can you tell us about how you got your start in the family and what it was like working for them?
Yo, my dad was the underboss for Joe Colombo back in the 60s.
So he was part of that crew, that family, for from the time he got made himself.
So that was the family we belonged to.
And when I got proposed in the early 70s, and then I took the oath in 75, obviously I took it for the Colombo family.
So that's how we started.
Okay.
So your father has an interesting story with him.
He was, you know, working with Lucky Luciano and those guys back in the day.
Can you give the audience a little bit of insight as to your father?
Because he was a legend in the game.
Well, my dad, yeah, 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 Genovese and Gambino, all those guys.
So he was kind of a legend in that life, you know.
And 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 I learned very well because 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 got to have a mentor that shows you the ropes, especially in that life, because you don't survive if you don't know it well.
That was kind of my, you know, my, you know, pattern in that life.
Gotcha.
Can you tell us a little bit about Joe Colombo and his situation?
Because he was assassinated in New York City.
Can you tell us a little bit about that and how outspoken he was?
Well, yeah, I mean, look, I like Joey a lot.
You know, actually, obviously, I knew him, you know, most of my life.
And 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 even closer with Joey.
And the day he was killed, he was, as far as I was concerned, he was a good guy.
I liked him very much.
He was a guy with integrity in that life.
He carried himself well.
But he made some mistakes.
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 it caught up with him and it was an Italian American Civil Rights League rally.
The league that he formed, you know, it was 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 that was the day that somebody shot him.
And, you know, he eventually died from the wounds.
He lingered for about seven years 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 those shots rang out.
And 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 quite an experience.
Yeah.
And for the audience, here he is right here, guys.
This is Joe Columbo here.
And the person that assassinated him, if I'm not mistaken, it was a black guy.
Rose, an African-American guy?
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 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 was like pretty much 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 tough.
Really was.
Was he not able to, was he still 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, 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 your father was instrumental in diffusing a war, right?
If I'm not mistaken.
Can you tell a little bit about that?
Yeah, it was the Gallo-Proface war.
This was before Colombo when Joe Proface was the boss.
And, you know, Gallo and him didn't get along.
And Joey Gallo had some gripes about the family without getting into all the details.
So they went to war.
The Gallo faction, the Proface 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.
The gallows had kidnapped a couple of the Proface guys and they were holding them ransom.
And it was my father who was one of the guys that went in and negotiated the release of the four captives because Gallo trusted my father too.
And eventually the war ended because Joey Gallo went to prison and that kind of put everything at rest.
And then Proface 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 at the rally.
What ended up happening?
Like, what was that guy's?
Why did he shoot Joe?
Like, what was his, what was his purpose there?
Well, listen, you know, no one ever knows the truth about this.
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.
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, he wasn't happy with Joe Colombo being the boss.
He thought that he should have been the rightful boss.
So there was friction between them.
But again, it's never been proven.
If you ask people, they'll say that, you know, the FBI set up Joe Colombo because they were very upset.
We were picketing the FBI for months and months and months.
And I can tell you this, they were very annoyed about it, Myron.
We were on 69 Street and 3rd Avenue, and we were picketing.
We had thousands of people on the line.
There was, 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, for the audience that's wondering.
So when Joe Colombo was the boss, he basically formed, it was like the Italian American League, if I'm not mistaken, right?
Italian American Civil Rights League, yeah.
And at the time, because there was such 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 Manhattan.
And 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 were innocent of.
And I mean, sorry.
The way it started, Joe Colombo's son, Joey Jr., got arrested on some for melting down coins for their silver value.
That was the 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 to close down 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 garner any goodwill by doing that with the other families even.
Yeah, no.
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 like in the light at the same time, but Joe was like actively like, no, I'm tired of these guys talk shit about us.
So I will say this.
So how, since he was the boss at the time, right?
And he was getting all this media attention, someone else probably had to handle all, you know, the criminal stuff.
Who was like doing the day-to-day running the actual criminal side of the organization?
No, he was still in charge.
I mean, he had his own boss, obviously, and all his captains, you know, 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, those of us that were in business, we did that.
Gotcha.
So prior to you coming on and coming up with the gas scheme, how was the Colombo family earning predominantly?
Well, you know, listen, you know, everybody believes that when you come into that life, they hand you a bag of money and, you know, you're wealthy from that point on.
It's just the opposite.
You got to make your own way and you got to 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, put some money on the street, trying to get by.
You know, maybe they were involved with a union.
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 construction and unions?
Yes.
I had two unions that I was basically in charge that I controlled.
And anything that you can do to generate money, you do.
And if you come with a big score, great.
And that's how it goes.
Yeah.
So in comparison to other families, how are you guys stacking up?
I mean, at the time, back, you know, in the heyday, because you got made in, if I'm not mistaken, 75 or was it 76?
75.
75 Halloween, right?
Halloween night, 75.
Halloween night, 75.
And you were there during the mafia's heyday and you became a made guy.
Then you ended up becoming a capo later on in 80, yes.
So five years later, you become a capo.
In comparison to other families, how was the Colombo crime family as far as earning?
Well, we had good earners there, but we were one of the smaller families because my boss, I used to say, hey, Genovese guys, they got 250 guys.
The Gambinos got over 200.
But us, the Bananos, Luccheses, 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 Genovese 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, when Pauli Castellano was in charge, he was a business guy.
So he, you know, he encouraged guys to be in business.
You know, it was a little different.
We were one of the families that were always at war.
We were kind of more of the violent family, you know.
I guess you'd have to say that.
But then the Bonanos too was smaller.
They always had issues also.
So, 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 were, you, so for you, you were really into the money and not necessarily the war.
So what were you like in the 70s, right?
With one of the wars that went down with the Second Family War, 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 did 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 Persigo because he was the guy.
It was two guys.
It was either my father or it was Carmine Persigo.
But my father was doing a 50-year prison sentence.
So that put him out of it, you know.
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 acting boss while Persigo was in jail, he decided he wanted to be the boss.
So the two factions, you know, teamed up and they went to war.
So listen, when you decide leadership in that life, it's normally not by an election.
If you take out the boss, you got to be ready and you go to war.
That's what I have.
Absolutely.
So let me ask you this, because you had mentioned prison earlier and I didn't want to interrupt.
What is prison life like for a made guy?
Obviously, you know, prisons are very race-centric, especially at the federal level.
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, I have to tell you this.
My father educated me.
He said, Mike, one day you're going to go to prison.
That's what this life is all about.
You're going to do your time at some point.
He said, I'm going to give you three words that are going to help you get by in prison.
He's remember them.
Please, thank you.
Excuse me.
He says, you know, you want something from somebody?
You say, hey, may I please have that.
You cut in and line into somebody.
Maybe your friend is in line.
You go, excuse me.
Do you mind if I get in the head?
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 for their friends.
So you be respectful.
You get a lot of respect in return.
I never had a problem in prison because, you know, 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 don't carry yourself the right way, you're going to pay the price no matter who you are.
And 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 got to 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.
When I got out of prison, I couldn't remember a name or a phone number or 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'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 going to 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 got caught?
I said, forget about it.
You're going to be in the same place again.
It was funny.
Forget about it.
So you were making a lot of money on the streets.
I mean, upwards of 8 million a week with the gas station scheme, which puts you as one of the top earners between any family, to be honest.
How are you keeping all that money safe?
Were you getting bags of it?
Were you putting it in a bank?
Were you burying it underground?
Like, what were you doing to keep all that money safe?
Well, you know, we didn't only have cash.
We were wiring money.
I had a very complicated system.
I was doing exactly what Joe Biden is doing now with all these companies that he had that have nothing, but they're all shell companies.
And he's got money.
It's a perfect money laundering scheme.
I had 18 companies, Myron, 18.
And 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'd, you know, send it to wherever, either I'd 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.
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 passing?
Because you were making all this money.
What percentage were you kicking up 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 to sit down, anybody ever challenges me, you got to have my back.
And that's what I told my boss at the time.
I said, look, I said, I came up with a deal here that's going to 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 anything to do with drugs.
I said, it's gas.
I said, but here's the thing.
I said, everybody's going to want a piece of this.
And you know what happens?
When that happens, we're going to blow it.
I said, so what you have to do, you got to make sure I win every argument.
You got to 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, I was kicking up $2 million a week.
So that bought a lot of loyalty.
I can tell you that much.
Wow.
So you were making eight and you were kicking back up two to the boss.
It's about 20%, 25% is the way we figured it out.
Now, let me ask you this.
You're making all this money, man.
Because here's the thing.
You were a very savvy businessman.
You had the car, you had the car company.
You had the gas.
You were lending out money on the street with high interest rates.
You had several legitimate businesses as well.
You had to have been garnering quite a bit of hate from other family members in the Columbo crime family or other crime families.
How did 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, there's a lot of resentment there when 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 got to 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 got to 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, you know, you're going to be okay for the most part.
Did you end up like employing a lot of guys in the family, in the Columbo crime family, to kind of keep allegiance and keep the jealousy out of play with the gas situation?
No, I mean, I didn't employ.
I had my own crew of guys, and, you know, they were doing well.
They were all making money.
Our crew was known for 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.
But again, you know, you didn't step on anybody else's toes and you did your own thing.
And yeah, you're going to 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 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 I'll sell gas to anybody as long as I know you're going to pay me.
So, you know, we put a lot of guys in business back down too.
Gotcha.
So after you left the life, did you have any enemies or people trying to come after you after the fact?
Maybe whether it was from the Columbo family 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 in it for life when you get in it, allegedly.
So people were very upset.
My father was upset with me, quite honestly, for quite some time.
We patched it up later on.
Persical, my boss was pretty upset with me.
But I knew I was going to encounter that.
But the bottom line, I also knew I wasn't going to hurt anybody because that's not what I was about.
So 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 and yet not hurt anybody.
And I will tell you this.
I don't think anybody, I know for a fact, if you look this up, Myron, I don't think there's anybody that was able to construct the deal that I had and get and not put anybody in prison or testify against anybody and yet, you know, walk away clean.
As a matter of fact, John Gleason, do you know who John is?
John, what was it?
John Gleason, you said he's a federal prosecutor.
He was actually my prosecutor.
He also is the guy that put John Gotti away.
He was the prosecutor on Gotti's case.
Okay.
John Gleason, you 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.
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.
Hold on.
Yeah, chief of the organized crime unit.
Yeah, this is probably.
Yeah, that's him before he got appointed to the bench.
Okay.
Yeah, so he was an AUSC person.
He recently wrote a book.
And in the book, he basically said that Michael Francis took the government to the cleaners.
That was a quote in the book.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Because it was, I just, look, I manipulated them.
In the end, 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 wouldn't hurt.
Look, walking away from the life is one thing.
Hurting people that you walk side by side with is another thing.
And 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, 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 going to take the, I'm just going to do my time and get out and walk away.
So I think that's why so many people admire and respect you.
So let me ask this.
As far as what were some of the major, because you know, there were the five different crime families.
How'd you get along with everybody?
I would assume that it was, you know, crazy competition between people trying to earn, whether it's, you know, lending out money, the unions.
I assume it must have been really competitive at that time.
You know, yes and no, but honestly, Myron, I got along with just about everybody.
I didn't, you know, I was able to do my own thing.
And look, I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't think up this whole gas tax scheme.
It kind of 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 the 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 two agents came to visit me at my, I had a dealership, it was a Mazda dealership, and they came to visit me.
They said, we got to talk to you.
They brought me outside and they said, Michael, this is 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.
You won't have any problem.
Yeah, like I believe that, right, Myron?
Yeah.
I said, guys, I don't know what you're talking about.
I said, you want to buy a car?
Come inside.
I'll give you a break.
They got so mad at me, Myron.
They started, you don't want to help us.
They started cursing me out.
I said, I don't know what you're talking about.
So we put a system in place where they just couldn't figure it out.
They couldn't figure it out.
So I didn't bother anybody.
It's not like I was looking to move in on anybody's territory.
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.
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.
I'd give them a break.
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'd give them a break.
You try to be as diplomatic as you can until you can't.
That's how it works.
So, man, so with the Colombo family, right?
At the time, you were one of the, were you the number one earner probably for the family ever?
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 Marbut Saints 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 families, Genovese and the Gambino family.
There were some really good earners there.
But 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 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 got to ask this, and I know we're coming up here because you got to get going here soon.
And people have been asking me this.
So I kind of want to get your perspective on this.
People have been asking like crazy cover this guy.
I think it's Rich Kuklinski or Robert Kuklinski.
The Iceman.
Yeah, the Iceman.
Yeah.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Because you have a different perspective on this.
You know, he allegedly had done all these murders.
He was a hitman.
I mean, I'll turn it to you.
You can give them a little overview who this guy is and the background.
I'm sure they're asking because they saw the movie and maybe they saw a documentary that he might have done.
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, he was, he was a rough guy.
Let's put it that way.
It was highly exaggerated in that movie.
He was not used to the extent that they showed it.
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 it was highly exaggerated.
And that's all I could say.
Yeah.
Yeah, they have him at some like ridiculous kill count.
And I've been like kind of, oh, my bad.
Yeah.
And I've been like thinking in my head, like, oh, do I want to cover this?
Because I don't know if it's a lot of this stuff is verified.
You know, some few.
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 Ropolo.
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 DeMayo had a reputation that we knew was pretty solid.
I mean, he was a rough guy, the whole Gemini lounge thing 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?
Where are these guys?
It's like you don't kill 200 guys in the Vietnam War.
You know what I mean?
So where are all these guys you're going to kill?
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, I guess, stereotypes that are like not true or myths that surround the Colombo crime family or the mafia in general, you would say?
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 not going to earn any money.
As a matter of fact, it's going to hurt you.
You know, another thing, you know, people think when you take the oath of Omerta that it's an oath to lie, steal, cheat, and kill.
It's not.
The oath of Omerta means one thing, silence.
You're not even supposed to admit that the life exists.
So you don't take an oath to come in there and be a bad guy.
But let me clean it up.
Now, obviously, you do things on that because we didn't believe in abiding by the government and the law 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 act.
Yeah, a few violent guys caught on wiretaps make it look like 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.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And for your viewers, I want to be honest with you, I'm not, I'm not, 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 report 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 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, 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 hits and all this other stuff, these are 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 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.
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.
So, Mike, real quick, can you tell the people about what you got going on in July?
Yeah, very excited, Myron.
I have recently come together with an old friend, an old acquaintance, Mike Tyson, and we're putting together a platform.
We're going to be launching it in July.
And the platform is basically: Mike 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 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, 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 going to get into all the names.
They're all coming together to teach people how to advance in business, whatever 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 going to help people on, we're going to also help them in their business life.
And we're creating a platform that's going to be hopefully a community that we believe is going to 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, I'm sorry, James L. Knight Center in Miami.
It's attached to the Hyatt Hotel.
You probably drove by it.
We're launching, it's going to be myself, Mike, and Chas Palmateri, my good friend.
We'll be on stage.
We're going to be talking about what we're doing.
We're going to be doing a QA.
We've got a VIP section there where we're going to be giving special gifts away, taking photographs, signing books.
It's going to be 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 filming a lot of the content that we're putting together.
And we're both very excited about it.
So is Jazz.
So it's going to be a good trio.
No, it's going to be awesome.
And guys, if you want to meet me, I'm going to be there as well on July 22nd.
You're my guest, Myron.
Yeah, I'm going to be there, guys.
So make sure to pull up.
It's going to be down here in Miami.
We'll probably have, we're actually going to have Mike and maybe both the mics on.
Mike Tyson and Mike Franzis.
I might bring both of them on for Fresh and Fit a few days before the event, man.
So guys, definitely, if you want to meet me in person, I will be there as well, man.
So I'm super hype and excited about it.
And we're definitely going to do another podcast on Fresh and Fit.
I'll read these chats.
Actually, you know what?
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.
Let Percoon goes.
Get the likes up.
Yes, guys, get the likes up.
And also, guys, go subscribe.
Mike has a YouTube channel, guys.
Here, I'll show you guys right now.
And did you want to talk about Mom Ties real quick?
Mobtize 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 platform with Tyson.
But yeah, if you go to momtizevip.com, it'll give you the whole breakdown as to what we're doing now.
We have a great community now that I 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 started a new podcast called The Wise and the Wise Guy.
We launched it yesterday.
And that's what me and Chas Palmateri.
So if you're listening in, please go to The Wise and the Wise Guy and subscribe.
We picked up four, oh, 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 going to really enjoy it.
I've got my own YouTube platform.
I've been up there for a while.
So I think people, they certainly know.
Yeah, there's me and Chaz, the wise and the wise guy.
You want to guess who the wise guy is?
It's probably you.
Yeah.
It's good.
He's great.
So yeah, we got a lot going on.
And of course, I got Franz East Wine.
If you come on July 22nd, you'll get a taste of my wine.
That's franzieswine.com.
And I also am in the pizza business, but I've got something so special and so exciting.
I'm not going to talk about it yet because when we launch this, 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 great because the ex-mob guy is doing pizza, wine, wise, the wise guy podcast.
It's awesome, man.
And then it says here, Lol says, the most solid man on YouTube, best crossover yet.
Yeah, guys.
Like I told y'all before, I really enjoyed that interview that we did before.
And I got even more questions.
Like I said, we're tight for time today, but when he comes back in July, we're definitely going to go a little bit more in depth.
And then we got Serg.
I just want to say, love Feda, and you are one of my mentors, Myron.
I appreciate that, my friend.
But Mike, I'll let you go.
I know you got a run right now.
Thank you so much for taking the time out to come on and discuss the Colombo Crime family and a little bit of your involvement with it and how you were earning back then.
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.
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, 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.
One of my chicks, she's blowing me up right now.
Like, ask this question, ask this question, blah, blah, blah.
She has her book right now.
She's reading it.
So, no, man, we're definitely big supporters of your work.
And it's fantastic that you're able to kind of take a negative thing and turn it positive and 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 going to put all his links down in the description.
If you guys don't know him, you better fucking know him after this one.
We'll catch you guys on the next one.
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