Michael Franzese on Joining the Mafia, Government, Prison, and Christianity

Intro

so I walked down the aisle stood in front of the boss and I held out my hand he took a knife cut my finger some blood dropped on the floor this is a blood hole and then I cupped my hands he took a picture of a Catholic saint put it in my hands and lifted a flame and it burned quickly it was merely symbolic it didn't hurt and he said tonight Michael Francis you are born again into a new life into cosmonautra violate what you know about this life betray your brothers and you will die and burn in hell like the saint is burning in your hands do you accept yes I do and at that point you're a made man [Music] welcome to episode 163 of the Michaela Peterson podcast I'm Michaela Peterson in this episode I spoke with Michael Francis Michael's a former mobster and leading member of the Colombo crime family after being part of the mob in a very serious way for more than 20 years he decided to completely change his life in a large part because of Christianity his story is pretty amazing some people have lives that sound like made up stories it's a crazy world out there I was very excited to speak to him I have been for a while he's the author of a number of books like Mafia democracy which we discussed and he works as a public speaker with the goal of steering people away from participating in organized crime Michael and I discussed the ritual of becoming a made member in the mob Michael's wife bringing him into Christianity the growing mistrust of government today the Acts of the Apostles and Jesus and more before we get started this episode of the podcast is sponsored by rabbit air you can see it glowing in the background right there there it is for people who suffer from them living with allergies can range from mild to miserable and in rare cases like mine allergies can make your face look like you weigh 50 pounds more than you do thankfully rabbit air is HEPA air purifiers filter out 99.97 of the allergens and pollutants from the air since the beginning of the Fall allergy season it's the perfect time to get one for your home office space or your bedroom or your kids bedrooms or your living room or your kitchen a lot of people suffer from allergies without realizing it so if you're someone who wakes up with a stuffy nose or you're congested allergies can look like a cold as well so if you're someone who gets a cold and then gets bronchitis it could be because of allergies given we breathe in nearly 2 000 gallons of air cleaning the air in your house can really reduce immune responses to allergens they've really helped me and I like how they sound and look you can get your rabbit air air purifier today by going to rabbitair.com to see their models or call them 24 7 to speak to a rapid our consultant that's r-a-b-b-i-t-a-i-r.com I hope you enjoy this episode [Music] how have you been thank you so much for coming on oh my pleasure I I've been good you know I've been busy um things have recovered quite a bit since uh we had that downtime in the pandemic but uh everything's been good before we get started for anyone who doesn't know who you are do you think you could give a brief background about who you are and we'll get into this what you've done and what you currently do um Michael Francis grew up in New York my dad was the under boss of the Colombo family one of the five New York mafia cousin and Austria families so I grew up in that environment he was a very very high profile figure he was kind of like the John Gotti of his day in terms of media attention law enforcement attention so I grew up around that my dad was indicted several times went to trial four times eventually was convicted on a major racketeering case excuse me a major uh and went to prison uh for 50 years and I was a pre-med student in Hofstra University at the time of his uh incarceration and Joe Colombo who was the boss of my family back then kind of took me under his wing and threw a series of events I decided to leave school and try to help my dad get out of prison and as a result my dad proposed me for membership in that life I became a made member of that life took the oath in 1975 and spent about 20 years in that life first as a soldier which is the initial rank when you you come into the life and then as a captain Capital regime and um I was a major Target of law enforcement myself you know mainly because of my dad's name and started that way but I was arrested 18 times I was indicted seven times I had two Federal racketeering cases one brought on by Rudy Giuliani went to trial five times was acquitted in five cases but then took a 10-year uh plea for a 10-year prison sentence a 15 million dollar restitution um and just before that I met a young woman who is now my wife of 37 years and basically it was because of meeting her and her faith that you know caused me to try to walk away from that life and that's what I did back in 1995 after serving my prison sentence and um since then I've been a speaker an author been involved in the film industry to some degree and uh here I am some 20 odd years to be alive and free and you know living a a fairly normal life so that's that's the basic thumbnail sketch okay this is great you you've had such an interesting life um is it have you had the experience going through these experiences in your life that it's surreal or because you grew up in this did it kind of feel normal yeah early on it was normal for me um because I don't remember anything but my dad in that way from the time I was you know able to start to realize what life was all about so you know growing up like that was normal growing up for me hating hating the police hating law enforcement hating the government was normal because I viewed them as enemies to my family uh you know I always heard chatter in the house and how bad you know law enforcement could be I loved and idolized my dad so anybody that was you know trying to hurt him uh became my enemy so it was normal you know growing up I mean I I looked at it that way okay okay that makes sense um what about stress wise I mean being indicted all the time and having cops there or after you constantly were you guys in a kind of hyper-stressed position you know Michaela it's funny you asked that I went to uh about a year ago I went to the doctor and uh had a little bit of a condition that on your face where you start to lose your beard just a little bit in spots and they say normally it's caused by stress so the doctor said to me do you have a lot of stress well I don't know I mean I don't know what stress is I just lived this way my whole life you know with watching out and being careful and and you know trying not to make any mistakes so it was just such a normal part of my life I don't think that I viewed it any differently even till now I mean things that are major to some other people are are nothing to me uh because of my you know my history in that regard so but you know in that life it's it's very difficult to navigate the life on its own but when you have that additional um you know problem of law enforcement constantly on you like they were with me it becomes that much more difficult so I was always kind of walking a tightrope you know my whole 20 years in that life yeah wow um and I I looked up how old you were before the podcast are you 71 I am okay because it doesn't look you don't look like you've been stressed out for your whole life I was um just in the other room with my husband and I was like he was like he's 71.

The Normalcy of Growing Up in the Mob

The Stress of Mob Life

I can only describe her relationship with my dad is very ugly because she blamed him for everything that went wrong in her and what went wrong well I had a sister that died of an overdose of drugs at the age of 27 my baby sister my brother was a drug addict for 25 years he got himself in trouble he was a street kid ended up cooperating with the government and actually cooperated against my father and put my father back in prison when he was out on parole a son against the father my younger another younger sister she was mentally unstable she died at the age of 42 of cancer and so the whole family was devastated and any lifestyle that causes that for a family is an evil lifestyle and that's how it is across the board so it's what I try to explain to these young kids today I said you're not only doing this to yourself you're destroying your family this is very destructive it's a bad lifestyle and and so yes it was very very stressful my mother was constantly under stress you know my sisters that didn't accept it the way I was able to accept it you know a little different sometimes with the with a girl and a boy and so it's it's very hard it's a very hard life to navigate and um I I guess people get it you know they look at it there from the outside looking in uh but you know the unfortunate thing Michaela with a lot of young men they're very very um very impressioned By the Light meaning I go into you know to these gangbangers and they'll look at me and I say Mike come on you had the cause you had the women you had the power The Prestige you had a Jet Plane they'll watch the movie Goodfellas I don't know if you ever saw that and else you know they'll point out all the good things and I'll have to ask them I said well wait a second didn't you watch the second and half of the movie the end of the movie who died who went to prison who lost everything who got killed you didn't see that part they don't see that they only see the first part who's got all the money and they don't look at the devastating end of the story so that's why I discourage people all the time and I you know I've worked very hard with young people to try to discourage them from that life and let them get their lives turned around obviously for me I don't know how you turn your life around without a belief in God I don't I don't know how you do that but um so I try to steer people that way but it's a tough very very tough life it really is I don't know how you would turn your life around without a belief in God either I mean before so I I didn't I didn't I was never an atheist I was never a full-blown atheist but I I never I think I was so sick too like I was so sick with joint Replacements and on so much medication that I was like if God exists like I hate him like this is all this is awful and I can remember I think when I was 17 I was 17 and I was suicidal with like pain and I can remember thinking there's like there's definitely no God and if there is one he's not good right um but now after I've been through all of that and kind of and I'm thank thank God I'm better um I can also see what that did for me right which is something that you can't see when you're in it and so I don't think of it the same way but I think uh I think I would have a hard time um with some of the things I struggled with without without a belief in God part of it I think too taking care of myself like I think one of the things I struggled with is I'm more inclined to take care of people around me than to take care of myself and I think a belief in God has probably helped that for whatever reason because it's kind of I guess sinful in a way to not take care of yourself right and I don't think I would have viewed it like that without a belief in God it's like no I like I have to otherwise I'm doing something wrong yeah I get it you know it's uh it's the age-old pro age-old question you know why do bad things happen to good people and when you don't have an understanding um biblically on what God is all about it's it's a very hard concept to understand we have a loving and gracious God and why do these bad things happen to good people and unless you have a real you know understanding of scripture and and a thorough understanding is it's a very hard question to answer but as Christians when you understand your faith it becomes a lot more clear um you said that when you were in prison you read hundreds of books on different faiths which is very interesting so what what was it about Christianity that made you decide that was I guess the most logical explanation for reality well you know I I think it goes back to Jesus you know what one of the things that's very con um and first of all you have to believe the um authenticity of scripture so I went back and did a study I had my wife send me books on authenticating scripture in the Bible and there's so much evidence to prove that the Bible is really authentic so once I got past that and I said okay I can trust this then I started to look and I'm more of a new testament guy and I really what was convincing to me is the attitude of the Apostles after Jesus died and to see how you know it would have been a lot more normal for them to run and hide because their leader um was gone and was killed in a violent way I mean this is somebody that they had all the faith in the world and then they see him destroyed in front of them and so what happens you know they leave um that would have been normal but then after Jesus resurrected and visited with them they became like lions they became strong they were willing to go to their death and stand up for Jesus they wouldn't even deny him at that that was very powerful evidence to me and so what I did was I researched to try to convince myself one way or the other that this is real or it isn't real and I can't get into all of it but the research that I did convinced me that what happened to the apostles was real that the history showed that this is this was a real happening there really was a resurrection the attitude and the actions of the Apostles afterwards proved to me that there was a risen Jesus and um it was all all of these things that that combined you know I always tell people I don't suggest that you go and live in solitary for several years and do the research like I did to prove you know scripture but for me a life changing and life-saving because it became indelible and you know here's another thing um you know Michaela I try to look at things very practically so from the time I was five years old my father drummed it into my head Michael you got to be a man's man that's the standard in life you have to live up to I heard it my whole life when I got into the life the same thing we're men above men We're Men of Honor I heard that all the time so when I started to study Jesus I did things a little bit differently I separated his manhood from his deity and I really wanted to see what kind of man he was because I was so in tune with the qualities and characteristics of what a man's man should be so when I studied Jesus of Nazareth I was blown away by his character his strength his his emotion everything about him to me was was perfect and I said this is somebody who should emulate so so trying to be very practical about it I said okay let's say I try to emulate Jesus of Nazareth throughout my life well I'm going to be a better person I'm going to be a better husband to my wife a better father to my children if I'm a boss I'm going to treat my employees right if I'm an employee I'm going to give my boss an honest day's work everybody in the community I'm going to be out giving I'm going to be wanting help people they're all going to benefit from me trying to emulate what I perceived to be the gray man that ever walked the Earth and I'm going to benefit and then I said well when I'm dead if he's not the savior of the world well I'm dead anyway so what did I have to lose I had nothing to lose so I came to the conclusion that emulating Jesus is a win-win situation for any man and I actually teach that it makes sense to men you can't lose because you're from being the savior of the world and are accepting Christ uh and asking for forgiveness if we're wrong about that well then we're dead anyway we didn't we didn't lose anything throughout our life but everybody benefited from us being a better person and um but I do believe that he is the savior of the world I believe it with all my heart I'm not trying to justify to convince myself otherwise I'm not a perfect person in any way but my faith is perfect because I believe this um and nothing can stand in the way of that at this point in time I've come to the understanding of why bad things happen to good people I get it all you know my kids complain to me sometime Michaela you know Daddy that's not fair I said really you know it's not fair what's not fair is this little kid that was born in Africa that has nothing to eat no shoes on his feet and that child did nothing but be born that's all he did so don't tell me what's not fair because you got it pretty good in your life and I understand this you know and it's helped me just it just helped me throughout my life you know having this point of view and it's all because of my faith it all because of the research in the study I did and the impact that God has had on my life that was great I think I think that's similar to uh what my dad believes and I'm not entirely sure exactly where he is in his journey I'm not like it's hard to kind of get a read on that but what I know he firmly believes is that if you if you um act as if Jesus would have acted then your life is better and the people's lives around you is better and so that's what he tells people too is that's the best way to live for sure and and and everyone really who's familiar with Christianity kind of knows that so that's very that's very cool um Michael if people are interested in learning more about you or finding you online where should they go well my website is Michael francis.com YouTube just plug in Michael Francis I'm on all the social media platforms you know under my own name and usually it'll say official next to us they know it's me uh my book um if they go on off your democracy.com they'll get a free chapter we give them a free chapter to see if they're interested and then they can purchase it anywhere on my website we give them a sign copy of it um I'm all over the place you know uh easy to find but um uh yeah and you know hopefully people tune in and you know hear a little bit more well thank you I really appreciate you coming on that was great very interesting well I appreciate you having me Michael and I'm I'm glad that things are going well and and uh you know I see you're really growing too you know your subs are really up there so it's it's great to know yeah and I know we've been through a lot and you know to see you yeah to see you to see you come out you know on on the other side of it is is just great it's very rewarding you know I've learned something and I think you said something that kind of uh uh stuck with me um you know when you're focused on yourself you know you got so many things going on and you're trying to take care of yourself and and and rightfully you know it's like what that it's like you know when you're an airplane and they say you know if the oxygen comes down put it first on yourself and then you help everybody else you got to help yourself first but I have found I I really mean that is that it's it's so much more rewarding to give of yourself than it is to receive and one of the things that motivates me is that I on a daily basis you know between emails and social media messages I get so many messages from people that have been inspired by my story by things that I have to say and encouraged by it and it's it's very motivating and it keeps you going and it's just a wonderful feeling it makes you know that hey you're doing the right thing and so you continue on so and I think you're inspiring a lot of people I got great comments wonderful comments um when when you were on my YouTube platform um you know people saying how courageous you were and just just wonderful compliments so I yeah you're inspiring a lot of people my daughters were like wow you know um and they don't listen to anything on my YouTube channel but they listen to you and and it was I was very glad wow so they'll probably listen to this also oh that's very cool okay well thank you very much um I I really think what you're doing is great too I mean having actual experience doing extremely serious things in a very manly way right like it's it's harder to get more manly than than the mafia right for especially for people I guess who well just in in general and so having that experience and being in really scary situations and then and then talking about it honestly and what you've learned from it um and showing that you're like a family man it's it's great I think it's really good for people to see so I'm gonna try and see if uh I can get you to talk to my dad because I'd like to watch that conversation I think that would be good yeah that would be great maybe the three of us even but uh it would be great yeah I usually just sit there quietly when he's involved like even the podcast I'm releasing today it was like I was kind of just saying I was like I'll just listen is that which which I'm totally fine with those are like those are my favorites so thank you again for coming on all right Michael thank you God bless and uh just keep doing what you're doing great

How Michael's Wife Brought Him Into Christianity

The Ritual of Becoming a Made Member

Leaving the Mob

Who Makes the Business Decisions?

Different Mob Groups Working Together

The Structure of the Mob Today

The Growing Mistrust of Government

Morality Outside of the Law

The Overwhelming Task of Questioning Everything

The Inspiration Behind Michael's Book

Instability and Division in the United States

Passing on Mob Wisdom

Integrating Normal Life and Mob Life

Women's Involvement in the Mob

Destructiveness of the Mob Lifestyle

Can You Turn Your Life Around Without God?

The Acts of the Apostles and Jesus

Michael's Franzese's Social Media

Outro