Michael Franzese began his life in organized crime the way most young men did, by learning the rules of submission before he ever understood the power of the role. By the age of twenty-two, he had already been indicted four times, stood trial four times, and walked away each time—three trials ended in hung juries, and the fourth was dismissed when the prosecution ran out of evidence. He knew the name Franzese carried weight, and he knew his father’s reputation had pulled him into those courtrooms in the first place. He did not complain about it.
His father, Sonny Franzese, had built a name that demanded respect, and Michael understood that the price of that name was scrutiny. He was still in school when his father called him to Leavenworth. His father was furious. Four indictments by twenty-two, he pointed out, was more legal trouble than he himself had ever faced.
The old man gave him a choice, wrapped in an ultimatum. If Michael wanted to help him, the best way was to join his world completely. School was over. His father sponsored him for membership, and the machinery of the Colombo family began to move.
Michael was summoned. The acting boss, Tom DiBella, wanted to see him. A soldier named Little Jojoe Vitacco came to collect him, and Michael was brought before DiBella and Andrew Russo, the underboss who advised the acting boss while the official boss, Carmine Persico, was away. DiBella asked him directly whether he wanted to become part of this life.
Michael answered that if his father wanted it, then he wanted it. DiBella looked at him hard and corrected him. He had not asked what Michael’s father wanted. The father had sponsored him.
He was asking what Michael wanted. Michael looked back and said yes. DiBella laid out the terms. From that moment, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, Michael belonged to the service of the Colombo family.
If his mother lay dying at his bedside, and the family called him to duty, he was to leave his mother and come. The family came first, above everything and everyone. When they decided he had earned the privilege of membership, they would tell him. Russo turned to him and ordered him to report the next morning to the family headquarters on Carroll Street in Brooklyn, wearing a suit.
That was it. For the next two years, Michael was a soldier in training, an associate on call at all hours. He spent most of his days on Carroll Street, learning the trade by watching and listening. His father directed him during monthly visits at Leavenworth, but the real education came from the men around him.
Andrew Russo took a liking to him and often had him drive. Russo’s standing order was simple: you are a soldier, you listen, you do not talk. Michael had been raised to listen before speaking, so he listened well. He heard the discussions the older men allowed him to hear, learned the weight of authority and the necessity of accepting punishment without defense.
When he was wrong, he kept quiet, took the reprimand, and did not repeat the mistake. The life did not come with money. After four trials, Michael was broke. He repaired car bodies and bought wrecked cars, fixed them, and sold them at auction.
A Colombo associate named Vinny Vingo ran a flea market on Long Island and put Michael in charge on weekends. Michael started making thousands of dollars a week, partly through loan sharking that Vingo allowed him to run alongside his own operations. He was rebuilding himself while remaining at the family’s disposal. The question of when he would become a full member hung over everything.
Until around 1975, the Colombo family had closed its books for nearly two decades, leaving men waiting twenty years to be made. Michael had served only two years, and he knew the older men resented his advancement. Sam, one of the veterans, told him directly that he had jumped the line. Michael conceded the point.
The decision was not his. The bosses had made it, partly as a tribute to his imprisoned father, and Michael had proven himself to their satisfaction. On Halloween night, 1975, he was made. Six men took the oath that night.
After the ceremony, they held a banquet, and the leaders of the family gathered with them. Little Jojoe Vitacco, still just a soldier, asked permission to attend and showed up carrying a brown bag. He joked about handing the new members their money bags, but the joke revealed the opposite truth. Entering the life did not bring wealth.
If you made money, you paid. The family might give you a no-show union job with benefits, but no one handed you enough to become rich. You had to do it yourself, proving yourself either as a money earner or as someone who served the family in other ways. Michael had studied that lesson in the career of Frank Costello, the man they called the Prime Minister.
Costello rose the hard way, took arrests in his youth, and then avoided trouble for thirty-seven years by transforming into a true earner. Money was power. Without it, no organization survived, legal or not. Costello built political connections and became the model of the successful racketeer, later entangled only in white-collar cases.
Michael admired that model and would have wanted to meet Costello above all other mob figures. As a made member, Michael’s routine changed. Andrew Russo became his captain. Michael reported to him two, three, or four times a week, and everything he did in the street went on the record, even legitimate ventures, so that if another family tried to interfere, the claim was registered.
Nothing was written down. It was all held in memory. Michael had a near-photographic memory for names, faces, and phone numbers during those years, an ability that prison later destroyed. He built his own crew, gathering men from the neighborhood and from his business contacts.
He was aggressive and sociable, known on Long Island, and men came to him wanting to be associated with him. He opened a Mazda dealership, then a Chevrolet dealership, a rental company, and an entertainment production company. His days began early, often before six in the morning. He went to his offices first, then drove to Brooklyn to sit with Russo, file his reports, and drive the captain to meetings when needed.
He returned to his own offices and met with his men. Six nights a week he was in a nightclub, either in Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Long Island. He loaned money to club owners in exchange for shares of their profits, taking interests in clubs like Jupiter’s and Le Jardin, staying until two, three, or four in the morning. He slept a few hours and started again.
He admitted that he did not give his family enough time during those years. He was driven by a single-minded ambition to be the best, to make money, and to get his father out of prison. That effort consumed enormous energy. Sonny Franzese had been sentenced to fifty years, effectively a life sentence, and Michael worked constantly on his father’s legal case while managing his own businesses and crew.
When his father came home, Michael became acting field captain. In 1980, he became a captain in his own right. The title of captain carried real authority. Street boss was another name for it, because the official boss had assigned soldiers to his command.
Those soldiers had to come to him first. He was their direct supervisor, solving their problems, holding constant meetings, and managing a large crew that at times included Russian associates. His travel expanded. He owned a home in Florida and a house in California for his film production company, and he moved constantly.
The work was relentless. He was indicted seven times total, faced two federal racketeering cases and one state racketeering case. Between the street work, the legitimate businesses, and the legal battles, balancing family life slipped further down his list of priorities. He acknowledged that regret plainly.
He loved his children and his family, but his immersion in the mob and business life left them with too little of him, and the demands of the life consumed everything else.