Breaking Good | Michael Franzese | EP 302

I don't want to not accept responsibility for what I did because I think that's wrong especially at this stage of my life let's put it this way had my father never introduced me to that life I would have never gone down to criminal path that's not who I was but on the other hand I had it in me to do what I had to do so I wonder myself sometimes you know what is the real you in other words if you were presented with a situation when you had to do something you did it is that the real you even though you were uncomfortable I've asked myself this question quite a bit but being I was capable of doing it back then was it the real me is it the real me you might think that because you as I said because you had decided to abide by this moral code and that it was a moral code that you wouldn't be conscience ridden for doing some of the things you had to do to stay part of the family because you'd already defined yourself in that way and also Define that as ethical but it was still grating against something in you and I would say hopefully that whatever was calling you to conscience was more the real you than the you that was stepping outside of your conscience to do the terrible things that you did it's very interesting to me that despite your oath and your discipline following of the appropriate practices that you were still guilty [Music] hello everyone watching on YouTube or listening on my podcast I have the opportunity today to speak to Michael Francis who has an extraordinarily interesting life um one that might be characterized but as breaking Good Michael Francis grew up as the son of the notorious underboss of New York's violent and feared Columbo crime family Francis was quote one of the biggest money earners the mob had seen since El Capone end quote and the youngest individuals on Fortune Magazine's list of the 50 biggest Mafia bosses ranking number 18 just five behind John Gotti at his most affluent Francis generated an estimated five to eight million dollars per week from legal and illegal businesses it was a life filled with power luxury and deadly violence Michael's story is a modern day Damascus Road experience from his early days in the mob and rise to power to God's leading him to do the unthinkable quit the mob and follow Christ in fact nobody a franzisi's rank had ever just walked away and lived Michael's compelling story of transformation is featured in his autobiography blood Covenant he's also written several other books including this thing of ours and The Good The Bad and The forgiven he's appeared widely in both Christian and secular high-profile media including the 700 Club Life Magazine Vanity Fair Sports Illustrated GQ and many others thank you very much Mr franzis for agreeing to talk to me today well thanks for having me Jordan yeah well this should be a very interesting conversation um so let's go back to the beginning I guess um you had a quite a let's say checkered past decades ago you were involved in organized crime at the highest level of organization really and I I suppose in in your way very successful um at it and so let's start with that what maybe we could go back even to your teenage years I mean tell me about your family and and how this all came about well I was born in Brooklyn New York and my dad Sonny Francis was the underboss of the Colombo family one of the five New York mafia cousin ostra families and my dad was a very very high profile figure at the time during the 50s and 60s and right into the 70s he was very well known and he was a major Target of law enforcement a major Target of the media back then I always say he was kind of like the John Gotti of his day I'm sure most people know of John and so I grew up in an atmosphere Jordan where um I love my dad very much he was a good father he originally didn't want this life for me he wanted me to go to school and be a doctor he wanted me to stay off the street but we were surrounded by law enforcement all the time and I always viewed them as the enemy because they were trying to harass my family harass my father and I grew up with people always talking negative about law enforcement so on and so forth and I experienced that from the time I was four or five years old up until you know my teenage years and then after that and it took a real turn of events during the 60s my dad was indicted several times he was indicted three times in the state of New York for some very serious crimes grand larceny and murder he went to trial on all three of those charges and was acquitted he was found not guilty but then in 1966 he was indicted in federal court for masterminding a nationwide string of bank robberies after lengthy trial he gets convicted in 1967 they sentenced him to 50 years in prison it was I believe the longest sentence for a bank robbery conspiracy case ever given up to that point 1970 he loses all his appeals and they ship him off to Leavenworth penitentiary to do his time and I was a pre-med student at that point at Hofstra University in New York but when my dad went away which was essentially a death sentence he was 50 years old when he went in we figured he had 50 on top of that he'd never come out of prison alive and then Joe Colombo who was the boss of the Colombo family somebody we knew very well he kind of took me under his wing I would meet a lot of my dad's friends at the time Joe Colombo had started the Italian-American civil rights League which was supposed to you know Safeguard Italian Americans from being harassed by the FBI and I got very active in a league I saw it as a way to help my dad and during that time I was actually picketing the FBI building in Manhattan and being a very active participant in what Joey was trying to do Columbo was trying to do and um I lost interest in school because a lot of my father's friends were telling me if you don't go to school and help your father out he's going to die in prison you know I believe my father was innocent because I asked him I said Dad bank robbery it doesn't make sense and you know he looked at me we're in the visiting room of Leavenworth and he said that son I'm not a bank robbery he said I was framed on these charges and he said we got to work to get these charges overturned or I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prison and it was a turning point for me during that visit uh when I said look I'm not going to school anymore if I don't help you out you're going to die in here and basically at that point he proposed me for membership in the Colombo family I was 20 years 21 years old when that happened and that's when my life started to take a shift [Music] government continues to spend borrowed money inflation continues to swell dragging down our economy and the stock market has entered bear territory so what's your plan are your assets Diversified I'm Phillip Patrick precious metal specialist for the Birch gold group for nearly 20 years we've helped Americans diversify into gold and we can help you too did you know you can own physical gold and silver in a tax sheltered account we can help you transfer an IRA or 401K tied to stocks into an IRA in Gold if you're skeptical about the trajectory of the economy in the US dollar then text Jordan to 989898 Birch gold group will send you a free info kit on securing your savings with gold with thousands of satisfied customers five star reviews and an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau we take Precious Metals seriously text Jordan to 989898 for your free info kit so what did what did being inducted into the Colombo family mean well you know you can't just go up to somebody in that life and say hey I'd like to join you know somebody has to propose you vouch for you say you have what it takes to be a member and uh for me it was my dad he proposed me to membership and you know there is a a process to becoming a made man or a an official member of that life and you go through a process where you have to prove yourself worthy of becoming a member and you know it could have been you know there were guys at the time Jordan they had an expression in the life where the books were closed from the 1950s up until that point in the mid 70s they weren't officially bringing any more members into that life because it was security reasons and this was all five families in New York uh uh kept to that but then they opened the books again in the 70s so there were guys actually waiting 20 years to become members of that life just you know they were just there 20 years for me it was a two and a half year three year process because like I said they had opened the books so you know you have to prove yourself worthy um there's a lot of discipline in that life a lot of authority um a lot of alleged respect you know you had a meeting at eight o'clock if you weren't there at 7 30 you were late you know it could never be late in that life and you just had to follow the orders whatever you were told to do you know it's it's difficult for me to share say this but you know I like to be honest about it you know that life at times is violent and if you're part of that life you're part of the violence and um it took me two and a half years before I proved myself worthy and it was actually Halloween night in 1975 when I took an oath and became a sworn made member of the Colombo family and what sort of things did you have to do what sort of things were you called upon to do in order to be deemed worthy of membership well again you know when I first um one after my dad proposed me it was about two weeks later when an official in the family a captain picked me up and he took me to see the boss now I don't know if you're aware but uh Joe Colombo had been shot seriously wounded at a big rally that we had in Columbus Circle uh back in 1971. he eventually died from the wounds and I was about 12 steps away from him when that happened on the stage was kind of the first eye-opening experience that I had in that life and um you know you uh I was told straight out you know they said to me do you want to become a member of this life and I said yes and they said well here's the deal it was a new boss that had tooken over his name was Tom debella Tom is passed on now and he said to me here's the deal from now on 24 hours a day seven days a week you're all called to serve this family the Colombo family that means if your mother is sick and she's dying and you're at her bedside and we call you to service you leave your mother's side you come and serve us from now on we're number one in your life before anything and everything and when if we feel you deserve this privilege this honor to become a member we'll let you know so from that moment on you have to do whatever you're told to do to prove yourself worthy and you know there was a lot of menial things you know there was times I had to drive the boss to a meeting I sat in a car two three four hours waiting for him to come out you know God forbid you leave you go to the restroom go get a newspaper he comes out you're not there you're in trouble you know stuff like that I know I did that once and and paid the price I had a real tongue lashing um you know just a lot of things are like that I mean a lot of times you're just really hanging out and observing and watching and listening and uh you know I learned to be a very good listener at that point Jordan I just listened and observed and seen what it was I need to do and what was it expected of me and look you know again to be honest there are times when you're called upon within that life to commit an act of violence and if you're told to do it you need to do it and before before you had gone into medical school and and and then decided to take this turn into your life had you been involved in anything that was violent as a child or a teenager I never was involved myself I mean I had fights you know I mean I had a a fight two or three neighborhood fights I mean my ribs were broken once I got hit with a bat um you know things like that scuffles like that but nothing major but I witnessed things you know my dad was a fairly violent guy I mean I saw him hit people um so I witnessed that um I didn't really enjoy seeing it but I witnessed it at one time at a really young age I think it was 10 or 11 years old and he had you know trouble with somebody on the street I was driving with him and he was pretty violent with the guy how did you react to that when you were 11. it kind of scared me you know I didn't see him like that um with another guy so I was a little concerned I said hey you know in my mind I guess I was thinking this is this going to get out of hand what's going to happen and Two Fellas that were with my dad walked over to me and said I was in the car and they said Mike don't worry about it probably shouldn't be seeing this but everything is okay but it made an impression on me so all right so you you how far do you got medical school uh when I was a pre-med student uh it was my second year I was a sophomore basically a biology major what and what happened with your father what happened with your attempts to to to have his case uh adjudicated re-adjudicated well my dad actually did 40 years on that 50. and he was paroled he made parole because he was under the Old Law where they still had parole uh in the federal system back then today they don't have it you got to do 85 percent of your time but he was under the Old Law and he after 10 years I actually did get him out on parole but he kept going back in and always always for associating with other felons somebody alleged to be an organized crime so he was paroled five times violated five times and went back in and uh he ended up doing 40 on the 50 he was actually released in 2017 for the last time he was a hundred years old the data was released he was actually the oldest you know member of that life in America probably in the world and he uh he died at the age of 103 just uh two two years ago hmm so what did it mean to be in that time at that time what did it mean to be part of the kazanostra of five families in in New York and and why five and how were they were they bonded together or were they competing with one another well they didn't compete with one another but uh there were rivalries at the time but never rivalries that ended up in violence because in that life there's a perception that families used to fight one another that's that kind of uh activity stopped in the 40s you know when Lucky Luciano got together and and created the commission and there was kind of a ruling body over the five families the boss of each family was involved in it uh they didn't fight among one another they settled disputes amicably Whenever there was a war in that family was always a civil war it was usually for power or leadership so um but I always say this Jordan I believe the golden years if you want to call them that of Mafia in New York and maybe probably throughout the United States was really from the 50s until the mid 80s in the mid 80s things started to fall apart when Rudy Giuliani started to really use the racketeering laws and uh put a lot of guys in prison created a lot of informants and that's when the life kind of made a uh a drastic turn you know I guess for the better for society but for the worse for them but it was a big deal you know back then I mean we had a lot of power and a lot of control in this country the midterms are upon us and it's time for some real change inflation isn't going away and if the current Administration keeps handing out free checks Americans won't just be hurting they'll be fighting to survive the typical Investment Portfolio of 60 40 stocks and bonds is down by 34 it's worst drop of the century millions of Americans are taking a hit what can we do to set things right you could invest in assets that aren't dragged down by the stock market like fine art with Masterworks Fine Art Is So disconnected from stocks that even as the 60 40 portfolio keeps losing Fine Art is selling for 26 percent more than it was last year just recently Mass work sold a painting for a 21.5 net return to their investors go to masterworks.com and use promo code jbp to sign up for Masterworks and skip their waitlist that's masterworks.com promo code jbp or click the link in the description see important disclosures at masterworks.com CD [Music] yeah well it said in your bio that you at the height of your activity you were involved in criminal activity that was generating something between five and eight million dollars a week and that would be in in the 70s if I've got the timeline correct yes so that's an awful lot of money what sort of so what sort of activities were you overseeing and what did that overseeing consist of well you know there's um you kind of you kind of find your own level in that life and I like to explain it this way there was kind of two types of people in that life you were either a racketeer or a gangster a racketeer was a guy that knew how to use that life to benefit him in business and went out and made money not only for himself but for the family and a gangster was someone that was just not capable of that and they were kind of a I guess you can call it a thug you know they were the guys who did a lot of the street work um if you're a racketeer you also had to be a gangster at certain times because you were you were you had to do that you know that was something you had to do but normally they tried to keep the guys that were earning money you know earning money because no organization survives without money so I was fortunate I knew how to use that life to benefit me in business and I went on to make a very significant amount of money what did we do just about everybody in that life um you know in that level isn't a gambling like I had a lot of bookmakers that were under my control because bookmakers weren't really allowed to operate on the street unless they were some way affiliated with organized crime we wouldn't let them um you know I put out money on the street at usurious rates people couldn't go to a bank so they would come to me uh we did that and I was um again I was I was very aggressive on the street I worked very hard and a lot of people would come to me with different schemes you know there's a there's a uh a misconception that guys in that life sit in their social clubs and look at the next business that they're going to attack or infiltrate or corrupt in some way and that happens on occasion but normally it's someone from the business that would come to us and say hey we have a scheme to defraud our company or you know our business can you help us and that happened to me quite often and the biggest thing you know to answer your question that I got involved in was um I was involved in a scheme to defraud the government out of tax on every gallon of gasoline and somebody brought the germ of an idea for me and we uh we created that into a huge huge uh Enterprise I would say where we were generating eight to ten million dollars a week how was that implemented that that that scam on on the gasoline tax front well initially uh in New York and I think throughout the country the tax Century gallon was collected at the gas station the gas station operator was obligated to pay the tax while that was happening we had 350 or so gas stations that we'd owned or operated and we installed people in all of them and to make a long story short you know it would take the government about 10 months before they would come down on a company that wasn't paying tax and we had a way to manipulate them so that it took 10 months and then they changed the law and they said that you had to be a licensed wholesaler in order to collect the tax and then you had to pay the government well I had 18 companies that were licensed to collect tax on every gallon of gasoline and the same deal it took them about 10 or 11 months before they came down on us and we had accountants working for us that were able to keep them at Bay for that length of time and then by the time they would come down on a company we just closed the doors that company would be over and we'd move to the next license so we we did that for I ran this operation for almost eight years so how come the government didn't clue in if they were losing the amount of money that that you were siphoning off that you said you ran this repeatedly so if I've got it right you set up a company you had about 11 month window before the government would come in and enforce its its tax collection so you could collect money for 10 months and then just kill the company and then start another one correct and so and and then you managed to do that for eight years yes so why didn't the government clue in well they couldn't you know they were investigating us they were trying to clue in they just couldn't figure out how we were doing it or what we were doing and you know it was a pretty sophisticated operation and we just tried to stay one step ahead of them which we were able to do and it lasted that long I mean I had an incident once where two FBI agents I had also a couple of uh car agencies I had a Mazda agency and a Chevrolet agency and they visited me in my offices once and they brought me outside and they said look we have an idea what you're doing we know what you're doing but we can't figure it out just tell us help us and we'll give you a pass on all this now obviously I knew they weren't going to give me a pass and I didn't cooperate with them at the time but they knew something was going down they just couldn't figure it out we just stayed ahead of them and so how did it finally fold up after eight years well my partner who developed the scheme along with me he was actually the one that brought me the idea he had a small operation out in Long Island and he got in trouble on an unrelated case a tax issue a personal tax issue that he had and at the time we had a uh he was on trial and we had a compound in um Panama and the reason we had it there is because there was no extradition between Panama and the United States at that point in time and so he was flying back and forth to Panama and it was at some point in time when he thought he was going to be convicted on his case and he didn't want to take the conviction so he fled to Panama and um the FBI somehow uh they went and kidnapped him in the middle of the night so they bypassed the extradition loss and they brought him into Florida and at that point in time he agreed to be a cooperating witness against me and I was the target at that time I had several investigations going on me at one time and once he became an informant and started cooperating he told them how the whole scheme was coming down and that's when it fell apart so I'm curious about your personality then and now I suppose it seems to me that juggling all these Enterprises Each of which has a high probability of of collapse and a high probability of Investigation um I would think of that as something extraordinarily stressful and so how is it that you were able to keep your head well you were engaged in these Enterprises and because I can imagine if I was doing that I would be apprehensive all the time as a consequence of being pursued let's say but obviously you were able to deal with that and so how are you able to stay composed well engaged in these activities and why at that time did you think it was worth it well you know that's uh that's a good question I I'll tell you you know it wasn't only I was a target of law enforcement from day one because my dad's name was so high profile I mean I had throughout my time in that life I had 18 arrests they were on me all the time I found out I also had seven indictments I had five State indictments and I had two Federal racketeering indictments one that was brought on by Rudy Giuliani and I went to trial five times I was either dismissed or acquitted in every case and um so I constantly was under investigation and on the other hand you know when you're in that life you're constantly watching out for the guy next to you because that's the uh that's just the way the life goes so you know I mean I never analyze myself and say how I how was I able to do this I think part of it stemmed from you know the resentment that I had from law enforcement that hey you destroyed my family you took my father away and I'm just going to continue on this path um but I will say this Jordan you know people have asked me that uh many many times there were things that I had to do in that life that I was very uncomfortable in doing I didn't like it it wasn't part of who I was I believe but you know in some way I mean I just stepped outside of myself because I knew I had to do it um or so for consequences myself and I did it and then I sprang back to who I was before that I mean I don't know how else to you know to say it well you you said already that you had constructed a pretty complex identity you had a two and a half year apprenticeship and as you get deeper in and deeper into something that's more and more of Who You Are and so the alternative to continuing in that vein is to do something radical completely radical and different and that's no easy thing to manage and I think people do in their lives step outside themselves quite frequently to maintain what they have so you you said part of it was that you had been embattled on the law enforcement front for a very very long time and so you were pretty accustomed to that and that you felt that the law enforcement agencies were enemies and so was that part of the Justified that was part of the justification for engaging in that in that in in those activities yes I mean I saw law enforcement as they're corrupt these are not good people they framed my father they put him in jail for a crime he didn't commit uh it was very destructive to my family I mean we had a you know I don't know what any family of any member of that life including my own now not my wife and kids thank God for that but mother father brothers and sisters uh that hasn't been totally devastated and I guess I blame them in a big way early on I wasn't blaming my father I was blaming them and so anytime I was able to get over them or fight with them or argue with them I don't mean argue verbal argue it but you know just I just did it I went for it it was it was very resentful on my part I had a real resentment I see okay okay okay so some of the I see so and and so then that also meant that when you're facing prosecution by the law enforcement entities in the Judiciary you're still feeling like you're embattled and that that you have a moral obligation in some sense to continue to fight despite the costs when you when you look at the situation now because you're you're a changed man and we'll get into that you you talked about viewing law enforcement as an enemy and an enemy worth continually battling against even at personal cost and not blaming your father and you said you loved your father and that he was a good father to you when you look back on it now I mean obviously your father and correct me at any point if I've got this wrong but obviously your father was engaged in widespread criminal activity how have you how why was that not an issue when you were young why do you think that his guilt on that front was more or less invisible to you and and how do you view his participation in these activities and his hand in establishing his Destiny even if he was framed on those charges how do you view that now well totally different you know one of the you know I've had many defining moments in my life but when I stepped away from that life and walked away I had a lot of trouble Jordan I mean there was a a contract on my life because you can't walk away from that life and everybody thought the the next step for me would be to be a cooperating witness because that's what happens normally people don't just walk away so I I was in prison at the time and you know we can get into that how that happened but um the law enforcement the FBI came into the prison and said um there's a contract on your life you're a dead man anyway cooperate with us and they said and your father went along with the contract we got word from our informants now I understood that you know I understood that because sometimes in that life if you uh propose somebody and that person becomes an informant well you could be held responsible in my case probably not with my dad because of his reputation there but it was possible so I understood what he was doing it hurt a little bit but it didn't bother me that much because I I understood the life well and I said well these are some of the consequences I'm going to face I don't believe my father would ever put a gun to my head but he might have kept quiet you know and just well hey my son violated the rules uh but it was really later on that I had a conversation with him and this was many years later after I walked away it was probably maybe 10 or 12 years ago and I said to him I visited him in prison on his last violation and I said you know Dad our families destroyed I mean my mother 33 years without a husband at the end of her life she died in 2012 for her relationship with my dad can only be described as ugly because she blamed him for everything that went wrong what went wrong I had a sister 27 years old died of an overdose of drugs my brother 25 years a drug addict I can't even begin to tell you what he put the family through and me personally trying to keep him alive on the street another younger sister you know 41 years old she she died of cancer but she was never mentally stable and I said you know dad you got to claim responsibility for what you destroyed our family because you was asking me you know you walked away why did you do this and I said because I didn't want to put my family through what we went through and you know he looked at me and he said well none of this was my fault I said what do you mean by that he's well I was framed on this case and I said dad you weren't framed because you were a doctor a lawyer or a priest you're afraid because of who we were I said you got to come to terms with that because eventually you were going to go down he wouldn't accept responsibility so that's it so that's interesting so okay so so so let's let's talk about that a little bit because that's extremely interesting so because you might think that given that he had lived um an exceptional criminal life that he would have been willing in some sense to accept the guilt that would be part parcel of that I mean if you engage in criminal activities then you're doing criminal things and obviously that's wrong in some sense or it wouldn't be called criminal and you'd think that that would be part of the price you'd pay for whatever success and respect you might generate as a consequence of doing that maybe whatever Adventure you might have as a consequence of doing that but the fact that he dwelt on the narrow fact of his innocence in that regard means to me in some sense that he was denying his and I think this is what you're telling me is that he was denying his culpability you know when you often hear that um especially the high-level criminal types are um without conscience but that doesn't seem to be an appropriate description of the situation with your father because if he was without conscience he would have just said well of course I was guilty and they framed me the sons of but that's exactly what you'd expect but you know I had it coming to me in some sense because of all the other things I did but you said that he was clinging to his innocence and also unwilling to take responsibility for what he had done and and is that do you think that's an exaggerated version of what you had to do when you stepped outside yourself so to speak to commit the sorts of Acts that you didn't regard as part parcel of you yeah I think it could be described that way yes you know and and I got upset with him during that meeting too because I said you know how could you not claim responsibility for any of this I said our family was destroyed and he he refused to do it um he was very now again I don't know if he just couldn't face me and say it maybe inwardly I can't look into his heart and his mind but he was very adamant about you know denying it and maybe in some sense um I don't know maybe that had a carryover effect on me during my time in that life because my dad did teach me one thing he said to me well it taught me a lot of things that I thought were very helpful to me but one of the things he said is never admit to anything never no matter what you don't ever admit to anything let them prove it let somebody else prove it and I saw that as being wrong later on but during my time in that life and growing up uh that's how I I would never admit to anything if you guys want to get me you got to get me uh you know I'm not going to help you so that was my mentality back then right right and do you do you think that did carry did that also carry over do you think it's hard to practice something without it becoming habit let's say and so you might say well did that carry over to your attitude to yourself because I am very interested in that idea that you brought forward earlier about having to step outside yourself when you saw yourself doing things that you didn't regard as essentially you you know it's a strange distinction right because there's the real you that's doing the things that are good and then there's the sporadic you that are doing terrible things but that's not really you there's a a line of denial there and that's not conscienceless in any sense it's just in some sense it's the denial of conscience and you did say that you know your father seemed to manifest the same manifest the same attitude on a very large scale when you decided to get out of the that that criminal life was that a consequence of willingness to preserve your family from the catastrophes that you're that your birth family had been through or was that to what degree was that also your willingness to look at those things that you've done and to start seeing them as part of you instead of part of whatever it is that you were being when you weren't being you well you know there were there were a couple of things that led to that um you know Jordan one of the horrors of that life is that you make a mistake your best friend walks you into a room and you don't walk out again and there was a night when I had that experience you know there was a lot of talk about me on the street I had a a very big crew at that time we were making a lot of money there was a publication I think it was Newsday that uh wrote a story that said I was getting powerful enough to break away from the Colombo family and start my own family there was no truth to it it was fictional story be now the media is and so guys on the streets start to get a little bit nervous of that especially my boss at the time so without going into all the details unless you wanted me to they I always walked into a room one night and I didn't think I was going to walk out again and it was one of the scariest times of my life it was not heroic that I walked in it was more robotic I just said hey if this is it I was such a product mentally well I'd like I'd I'd like to hear the details tell tell me what happened so so you were you were becoming very successful and you were you were a story was generated about you and the Press about your Ambitions and obviously that caused some concern so yeah tell me the details okay well my dad was on Parole at the time and I was a captain in a family they had elevated me to that position that's a powerful position captain and my dad was also a captain and uh I went to see him he said for me I went to see him and we were in the driveway of his house in Long Island and he said to me the boss wants to see us tonight and because my dad was on Parole and I had no record at the time I drove him everywhere I tried to Shield him from people because he kept getting violated so um wherever he would travel he would go with me I'd keep people away from him so I said okay what time do you want me to pick you up because we knew it had to be a covert meeting because the boss was also on parole and we couldn't all get together because it would have been a violation for the two of them so he said well they want to do this differently they want me to come in first and they want you to come in second and I said well why do they want to do that I said no we're not going to do that you know the talk on the street I said we're not going to do that why would they separate us I said we'll go together long story showed it was the first time I really had an argument with my dad ever in my life because always respected him even if I disagreed with him I did it nicely but uh he was very adamant very insistent he said we had an order we got to do it that way I said okay so another captain in the family called me um and he said meet me in Brooklyn on 18th Avenue and so I drove in from Long Island I met him I parked my car and I got into his car now this is somebody I knew my whole life he was in another Captain equal rank with me when I got in the car and the passenger seat there was somebody sitting behind me who I recognized but I didn't know well and I started to get a little like what's going on here and it was about a 15-minute ride to the house where we were meeting the boss at that time and we had to do with covert to make sure nobody was following us it was a summer day in August and when we parked the car we get out of the car and it was about a 30-yard walk from the car down to the basement apartment where we had to go and I get out of the car and I start to walk and I the Fella's name was Jimmy Jimmy I assume got behind me and the other fella got out behind him and this was a very bad setup Jordan I said something is dramatically wrong here I said this is wrong you know when I think of this I'm telling you every time I think of it it was that intense for me I can hear like the crickets chirping and I I see these little uh lightning bugs that we had at the time in New York and as I'm walking down there I'm saying this is bad I may not walk out of this room and I started to get very nervous scared started praying I wasn't a grateful guy at that time but I started praying and um I knew the setup you know walking down those steps that door opens and uh might be the last thing I ever see um I don't know how I didn't faint when the door opened but anyway we go in I sit with the boss my father wasn't there and we go back and forth back and forth and they were grilling me over money and all this stuff and and what happened I started to get mad I was getting angry and I realize you don't ever get angry with the boss that's a bad move and I said look it looks like I'm walking out of here let me just keep my cool which I did and when it was over you know hey let's have a glass of wine and everything is good and we're hugging and you know I I just wanted to leave so I told Jimmy the fellow Drive I said Jimmy drive me back to my car I got to go to Long Island it's a long drive should we get in the car and I was really just about to I was very angry with him because this is somebody I knew all my life and I want to tell him why didn't you prepare me for this she was serious and he looked at me and he said before you go any further Michael he said I want to tell you this he said this was very serious tonight you held yourself well in there could have been a problem when he said that to me I got even more upset with him I said you're my friend you don't let me know you don't prepare me give me a hint and uh he said no and um I'm sitting there and he said something to me that really got to me he said if it was the other way around would you have told me and I thought about it for a minute and I honestly said no I wouldn't have he said well you know this life is well or better than anybody you grew up in it he said this is the life we lead and I I was in silence uh for about 10 minutes I was just thinking about all of this and then when I went to get out of the car he grabbed my arm and he said to me I want to tell you something you're not going to you're not gonna like this but you can take this to the bank he said it just like that he said your father was in there earlier tonight he didn't help you one bit he hurt you in there tonight and I was I was pretty stunned I mean to the point where I couldn't even ask him what do you mean but as I was walking back to my card you're knowing my father so well I knew what he did he uh he didn't help me he said look if my son is stealing money or anything is going wrong I have no idea he handles everything you know I'm on parole I don't get involved in anything he threw me under the bus and I found out later on that's exactly what happened so it made a real impression upon me I said man if this life can separate father and son you know after the bond that we had you know both the Blood Oath that we took and father and son I said what do we really have here and um it was two years later that I met my current wife which was really my motivation for walking away but I still say to myself I wonder and I'm I'm not sure I'm saying if that incident never happened would I ever walked away because my dad had a very strong hold on me as did the life so all right I don't know I mean I I don't know if I would have ever walked away well it's it sounds to me given everything you've told me so far is that the people who were involved in that life um set up a morality of it's something like a morality of of patriarchal loyalty that goes above all else is that there are like military that military will be military style obedience is required and that all morality is therefore now a consequence of abiding by the rules of the game and that would mean you sacrifice your personal happiness you sacrifice the stability of your family you might even sacrifice the relationship you have with your son but the manner in which your moral is to abide by the code of the family and that sounds like what's inculcated does that seem accurate absolutely absolutely okay so so so that would also mean that when you're when you were viewing yourself doing things that you didn't think were say integrally part of the real you one of the other justifications for that is well that's the code that I'm bound to abide by because I've decided to enter this life and I've put my word on doing so and so at the moment in order to continue that and to abide by my word I don't really have any choice that's accurate yeah one of the things that really Disturbed me about my dad is that um he wouldn't take any responsibility for it you know none at all and what I what I had said to him on a few of his violations I said Dad the family is falling apart you need to leave New York because you can't make it in New York you need to get away from everybody and preserve the family and he wouldn't do it because his legacy in that life meant more to him than anything else he wanted to be known as the guy that would die with his boots on he would never be an informant no matter what he stood up you know with a 50-year prison sentence that's what he wanted to take to his grave and that's what he did but in the meantime the whole family was destroyed yeah well I I think that I I I think that part of the reason that the mafia life has such a grip on the popular imagination is because of that weird paradoxical relationship between the strict moral code which is admirable right like being able to abide by a moral code is disciplined and admirable and then that juxtaposed with the criminality and the chaos that goes along with that and the family price I mean if you're just a run-of-the-mill idiot Street shoplifting Thug and you know spinning off your idiot criminal uh Enterprises which are likely to end in catastrophe in a chaotic manner there's nothing that interesting about your life it's just kind of pathetic but the thing that and it usually has a pretty pathetic outcome and generally isn't very productive but the thing about the organization that you're describing is that there really is a an iron shod ethos that goes along with it now but what's interesting about it you know so imagine that we look at your situation we think you had decided to abide by an ethical order and that was the order of the kazanostra families and you're bound by that and then you might say well that defines you but it doesn't exactly because you said by your own testimony that despite the fact that you had identified with that ethic when you saw yourself doing certain things you didn't feel that was the real you and so then the question would be well who is the real you that that Mafia ethic is is is transgressing against you know if if it's something you did by choice which which was the case and it was something that you were disciplined to do you might think well that's you but that isn't the case what what you felt from what you've told me is that you felt you were violating the real you when you were doing terrible things to abide by these this ethos and so what do you think now you're much older and you've gone through many Transformations what do you think the real you that was being violated was and why wasn't that the cause of Nostra you well you know the fact that I was so uncomfortable at times doing the things that I was told to do I liked it I I don't want to not accept responsibility for what I did because I think that's wrong especially at this stage of my life but I can't say that that's something let's put it this way had my father never introduced me to that life I would have never gone down to criminal path that's not who I was um you know I wanted to be a doctor or go on with my life in that way but on the other hand I had it in me to do what I had to do so I wonder myself sometimes you know what is the real you in other words if you were presented with a situation when you had to do something you did it is that the real you even though you were uncomfortable I've asked myself this question quite a bit um and I don't know you know like now I wouldn't think of it I don't want to you know hurt my family in any way I don't want to do the wrong thing but being I was capable of doing it back then was it the real me is it the real me well well that that that that is that is the question in some sense and I suppose that's also the question that is relevant with regards to a conversion is what is the real you and I don't mean just you specifically I mean the real human being you might think that because you as I said because you had decided to abide by this moral code and that it was a moral code that you wouldn't be conscience ridden for doing some of the things you had to do to stay part of the family because you'd already defined yourself in that way and also Define that as ethical but it was still grating against something in you and I would say hopefully that whatever was calling you to conscience was more the real you than the you that was stepping outside of your conscience to do the terrible things that you did you know I do believe that people have an intrinsic sense of well I think it's an intrinsic religious sense in some sense and that's why they're called upon by their conscience period now exactly what that means in the final analysis I don't know but it's very interesting to me that despite your oath and your discipline following of the appropriate practices that you were still guilty and it's also interesting to me that your father had to insist on his innocence and that that was what he used to escape responsibility because he wouldn't necessarily think that that was that would be vital under those circumstances but it was it was how he apparently it was how he lived with himself and and you said there was a kind of there was a kind of I I hesitate to use this word but there was also kind of narcissism of Legacy associated with that that's that's prideful I suppose he said that he wanted to be viewed and you can understand this and it is tough in some sense that he wanted to be the viewed as the guy who was so loyal that he wouldn't crack no matter what and even though that's misguided it's not nothing right it's not just complete chaotic rule by whim there is an ethos there but you know you said your your birth family was completely destroyed by that ethos it turned out that that doesn't work very well in the medium to long run and that would be despite the money and the respect and the power and all of that that went along with it why do you think it was so destructive for your family I mean it was partly because your father was jailed but that wouldn't be all of it well a lot because my mother you know which was very difficult woman she she didn't how could I put it she was difficult with all the kids in the family she couldn't handle motherhood alone we needed a balance in the household and uh he wasn't there to do that when he was there there was a balance even you know my brothers and sisters were younger than me I kind of became the father figure in the house when he went away um but my mother was such a strong personality and there was nothing to balance her out and then I think all the kids had that same resentment for law enforcement all of them and so it just it just worked against them and then dealing with my mother it was it was so difficult like my brother you know I'll tell you what happened to another Dynamic um my brother got himself in trouble because he was constantly in and out of trouble with drugs uh low-level stuff I mean he was a drug addict and he would do with drug addicts do and he got himself in trouble and he wore a wire against my dad and other people for over a year the last violation that my dad got and the last case that he got my brother brought it and actually testified against him in court he went into the witness protection program we didn't see him I didn't see my brother for 10 years when my dad was on trial and I went to see the trial I was shocked seeing my brother on the witness stand but um since then my brother's cleaned up his act and that he's no longer a drug addict he's been clean for a while and I sat down with him and I some of the things that he was telling me about his feelings inside and I believe he's being honest with me I guess I never realized how tortured my brothers and sisters were over my dad being away my mother being the way she was me you know being not out of their life but you know I got married and wanted to do my own thing um he just couldn't handle it he couldn't handle it he had a big resentment to my father big resentment and that's what he didn't think he did anything wrong I should you know John his name was John I said you know Dad almost died in prison as a result of Your Action still your father he didn't view it as anything wrong he said I had to do this well you guys were you guys were definitely in a bind with respect to your father I mean so one of the questions that popped up for me is you you you still speak of your father as far as I can tell with both love and respect and so one of the re one of the things I'm curious about is you know you you told me that his actions destroyed your family you told me that he was involved in high-level criminal activity that there's no doubt about that and although he was framed on the charges that he went to prison with and that he Bears a tremendous amount of moral responsibility for the Havoc that was wreaked in his wake but it's clear to me that you still love him and you respect him and so I'm curious about why you loved him and respected him first and then well let's let's proceed from there so what was it about the way that you're farther interacted with you when you were a kid and a teenager let's say and maybe even later that produced this love and respect despite the other elements of his character well he was always very supportive of me when I was younger he really did want me to be a doctor um I think I was the only one in the family that ever paid attention to him in a way that he wanted me to wanted all of his kids to because he was married once before he had three children from another marriage so there was seven of us all together kind of a blended family and uh I was really the only one that paid attention to him and so and I did everything to try to please him when I was younger for some reason I just I wanted to please him and I I tell you this Jordan maybe this had a lot to obviously it did um I gotta go back my dad met my mom when she was 15 years old and um he was married at the time and the way the story goes and this is probably going to blow your mind a little bit my mother got pregnant at 15. and I was born when she was 16. and my father at that time being that he was married in that life you weren't allowed to get a divorce you weren't allowed it was against the kosan oyster rules so my grandparents my mother's parents were so upset because back then you didn't have a child out of wedlock they forced my mother to marry someone else to say that that was her I was her his child and so I grew up for a short time believing that my father Sonny was my stepfather I believe that he adopted me at an early age because then his uh he left his wife and then my mother and him got married I think I was I don't know four or five years old but his first wife left ran away on his kids and so we had a a blended family my mother was like 20 years old when his kids came into the house and she didn't react well to that and there was a lot of dissension in the household and I grew up believing that my mother was kind of mean to his kids and that my father would turn on me because I wasn't his real son but he never did never did he always treated me as well or better than anybody else and I used to get mad at my mother I used to say mom why are you doing this she's going to turn on me one day and she would always say no he won't he won't don't worry about it but I didn't understand why it wasn't two years later years later when I found out that he was my real father and um you know so maybe it was me always trying to please him and him always treating me right that I had this real love and respect for him that never went away yeah yeah yeah well that's very complicated you know I read this book by Frank McCourt called Angela's Ashes and Angela's Ashes is a tremendous book and Frank McCord is a brilliant writer and his father was an absolutely destructive alcoholic in they they grew up in Ireland many many kids they grew up in poverty that was unbelievably extreme they they lived in a tenement house at one point that had three inches of water in it in the spring and and he had siblings who died of I think think it was tuberculosis doesn't matter it was a an illness induced by poverty and privation they often didn't have enough food his father was always off drinking up every scent the family had on these alcoholic Benders that went on forever and that was their life and you know Frank was a very wise child and he in some ways compartmentalized his father into two different persons there was sober morning Father who was a pretty decent guy and who actually loved him and who spoke words of encouragement and then there was drunk and useless nighttime father and he more or less ignored him and what Frank did was concentrate on the positive aspect of the relationship with his father and it's an amazing book because it's written almost entirely without resentment as far as I could tell and you could also tell by reading the book that Frank benefited from the positive attention of his father to the degree that he was able to Garner that even though overall what his father did was just murderously destructive in in the most irresponsible possible manner but you know you you said that your father so you could imagine that the best of your father came out around you and the best of your father was serving the best in you he said he really did encourage you and that does produce an intense Bond you know because I don't think that there is anything more important that a father can do for a child particularly a son although not uniquely a son than to encourage the best in them that's in some sense that's almost the definition of paternal love so then that would put you in a terrible bind because you have the father who's benevolent aspect is actually genuine and genuinely focused on you and you have a real relationship and then you have outside of that father the criminal father who's doing all these other things that are in some ways completely contradictory to that and you know and your response was intense loyalty to your father yes yeah and and I guess because he never turned on me in any way um I just always appreciated that so no matter what he did later on it never interfered with my love for him I might have gotten upset with him but I I couldn't not love him in any way so you know the other thing too Joe when I when I left that life um it was extremely difficult because I felt that I was betraying my oath so I would go to bed at night leaving the life wake up staying back in I mean it it took me years before I finally got over it um and I'm over it now obviously but it took me a long time it was a real struggle and challenge that's how much of a hold that life had on me and I think not only because of the oath that I took but really because of my father I didn't want to let him down in any way it was really a struggle so let's turn to that you said that one of the turning points was that evening that you described earlier where you weren't sure if you were going to walk out alive and the fact that your father in some sense threw you under the bus um before that meeting and then also your realization that had you been in the same position as perhaps your father and certainly your friend Jimmy that you might have done the same thing that obviously perturbed you to a great degree but then you also said that you met the woman that you are now married to not long after that and that that was also a turning point and so how how did you meet her and and uh what were you engaged in at that time and and how how and why did meeting her change you well I met her on a movie set I was producing a movie I had a uh film Distribution Company production company at the time that I was involved in independent and um we were filming a movie in South Florida and she was one of the dancers who was a dance movie I met her on the set and she was 20 years old and again very long story short I fell in love with her really fell in love with her obviously 37 years later and um I just said you know she was a Christian and her mom was a very devout Christian and I said at the time you know when I was falling in love with her I said my life is a direct contradiction to what these women believe and they didn't really know anything about me they were from Anaheim California and I'm from New York so I didn't really know anything about me but um when I fell in love with her and I knew there was something happening there I said am I going to marry this girl and then put it through the same thing my family went through because Jordan I became such a Target they were going to indict they were going to take me down at some point in time you only have a winning streak for so long and I said I got to make a choice it's either her or that life and I chose her and that's when I started to try to engineer this way for me getting out of the life and part of that was uh pleading to a racketeering case the underlying Act was tax fraud and accepting a 10-year prison term and a you know a 15 million dollar restitution with the forfeitures and all of that marrying her moving out to California and trying to you know preserve my life and again with the 10-year sentence I was under the Old Law at that time so I knew I could make parole at some point which I did after five years um but that was the whole plan she kind of became more important to me she overtook even the love I had for my dad did you get married before you went to prison yeah we got married in in July of 85 and I went to prison in December of 85. okay so what was it about let's talk about love for a minute there because you also said that your love for her transcended your your love both for the life that you had embarked on and also transcended the love that you had for your father in some real sense and so what do you make of that love I mean how old were you when you fell in love with her I was uh just about 32 years old okay okay and so what was it about the relationship you had with her and about her that had that transforming how do you account for that transforming experience well a step back a little bit I had been married once before um I married young I married at 24. and the girl I married who I cared for but I don't believe I was ever in love with her I loved her she was a good person uh she stood by my side when we were going through all of these troubles very close with my mother and that kind of you know almost I had to get married in a way uh and but I wasn't in love with her and so that that marriage was kind of falling apart mutually and then I meet her and we had been separated my first wife and then I meet her and I just knew that she was it that was it it was the love of my life for some reason it hit me in that way and um I don't know I just said you know I want to be with this woman and you know let me let me also be fair in saying this I had become such a Target I had just was acquitted in a huge case Rudy Giuliani indicted me on a big racketeering case I was a lead defendant I had 15 co-defendants and at the day of my arraignment I was she gave me a million dollar bill at the time he told me in the courtroom he said if I convict you on this case you're going to get double what your father got I'm going to give you a hundred years Michael because again I had a 14 agency task force that was assigned to bring me down because I had beat them so many times and um after a several month trial I was acquitted in that case some of my co-defendants were convicted they got 30 years so I said he would have given me at least 50. I said there's no way that I'm gonna you know beat this forever so I started seeing a lot of things going wrong with the life the racketeering laws were becoming very successful a lot a lot of guys are becoming informants and I think there was two parts to it I fell in love with her and she was the Catalyst that said okay Now's the Time to make a move I don't know if I would have made it if I wasn't with her she was definitely the motivation but uh so it was all these things kind of happening at one time in my head and bingo I meet her at that time and um I said this has got to be my exit strategy I got to get out of life I want to be with this woman I don't want to go into the witness protection program I don't want to cooperate I don't want to hurt anybody and that was a real dance that was very very difficult okay so let me ask you a few thoughts on this so you talked about the two different elements of you um emerging when you were called upon to to do things that you didn't think were were Central to your nature let's say and so and then there's the part of you that did do those things which of those two parts fell in love with her foreign hopefully that the better part yeah yeah well that's what well this is this is what I'm curious about you know because obviously she was attracted to you as well which is a mystery in some sense right because you would think that given your description of her and her straight life and her Christian Origins that you would be a dicey bat to say the least and so what do you think she saw in you that made her fall in love with you was she looking at the was she looking accurately at the positive part of your character do you think I do because I've been a good husband with her I mean she's you know she's the most important person in my life I always put her on a pedestal in many ways and and always treated her well uh very appreciative she waited for me all that time because I I ended up doing eight years in prison and she waited for me all that time um you know so I like to think that that's the real part of me that she fell in love with um but you know the fact that you know you're capable of doing other things I I you know was conflicted with myself as well who is the real you I mean yeah you were uncomfortable doing these things but you did them anyway so you know that's still part of who you are anyway you know so I don't know it's it's hard to say but one thing that really motivated her too her mother was a very very devout Christian wonderful woman she's passed on now but she took a real liking to me and uh she prayed for me every day every single day and she was very supportive of me when I went into prison she held her daughter up she really did as well as the church that we were involved in and she said this is the choice that you made with this fellow you're going to wait for him because that's the right thing to do and so her family became very supportive of me also and all of those elements combined I think were very helpful in in maintaining the marriage because very difficult I had a difficult prison time because the government was very upset with me they were trying to get me to cooperate they shipped me to different prisons around the country I actually spent 29 months and seven days in solitary it was a six by eight cell 24 7 and uh that's very destructive Jordan I I don't agree with that especially for young people it's very hard to get through that and I saw a lot of guys that it destroyed them totally destroyed them but she waited on all of them how did you how did you get okay so so we have two Mysteries there now on the table one is why this family decided to support you obviously that did provide you with a bridge out of your previous life so that's one mystery why what in the world did they see in you and why were they willing to stake their like eight years of their daughter's life on that and then the second mystery is how in the world did you survive with your sanity intact through that period of of um solitary confinement so let's start with the first one her mother really liked you now why in the world was that do you suppose because you'd think in some sense that her attitude would have been oh my god get my daughter away from this guy as fast as possible given you know our Christian background and his and his his behavior so what in the world did what in the world went on there well I think it goes to the type of woman she was you know I had a conversation with her one day and I told her her name was Irma and I said mama look I bring in some baggage into this relationship because of who I am and you know what I've done in my life I said but I love your daughter and I promise you I'll never hurt her and I said I love her very much and so I'm going to do everything to help her so when I go to prison um I should I'll make sure that she's comfortable um one of the reasons why I took a plea was so that I can maintain my wife's lifestyle when I say lifestyle she wouldn't have to go to work she wouldn't have to do anything so as part of the negotiation where I'd maintain the house and money and all of that even though I paid a big fine in restitution so I said I'm gonna she's gonna be comfortable while I'm away I should say I'll never hurt her and from that moment on she became my biggest supporter she believed in me and because of her Christian faith um you know she was very prayerful in that and she said you know her daughter this man loves you and if this is the choice you're making then you have to stick with it and her grandmother was the same way and uh I think that was Chris Camby was 21 years old when I married her she was a good girl she was a Christian but she was still a young girl she was she was a dancer at the time you know she uh um so I think that had a lot to do with it and even when I was in prison I tried to maintain one of the things that really really scared me in prison wasn't the prison experience but when my dad went to prison back in his day he was allowed one visit a month and one three-minute phone call as a result of that he wasn't you know he just became so separated from the family you know my brother had cancer in his leg we never turned to my father everything that went wrong in the house we didn't turn to my dad because he wasn't there we couldn't even discuss it with him so he had no input and him and my mother grew apart that's when the kids started to grow apart from him I maintained a relationship because I'd go and visit him every month and so I was afraid of that I said I don't want that to happen with me and my wife so fortunately the laws change you're allowed to get on the phone when I made my deal uh you know to take a plea part of the negotiation where they sent me to prison out in California so I'd get visiting so I'd maintain that relationship with my family all I cared about in prison was maintaining a relationship with her I was able to do that so um you know I took care of her in that regard her mother just believed in me and her father her father was kind of a he had some he was an alcoholic he had some petty little stuff on the street so um he liked me a lot you know in that regard I think maybe he looked at me wow this is big time for him I don't know but um you know that's what held it together and then you know she's a she's a genuine person of Faith she's very sincere in her faith that was her mother so and then let's let's look at the experience in prison so you were in solitary you said for 29 months yes okay so how in the world did you get through that and what did it do to you and was there any utility in it or was it just torture well emotionally and mentally it's torturous you know when you look back on being in solitary 29 days I can't differentiate one day from another I can't differentiate one hour from another if I think back and you I I don't know it was one long day one long day that was it and um for me at the time I dove into my Bible this is when my my uh faith-based transformation took place in solitary dove into my Bible I had my wife send me in several books on all faiths and I started to study all different faiths and um it sustained me in a big way I had a Sony Walkman I was listening to a lot of the pastors that were interpreting scripture I was trying to make sense of it Jordan because you know evidence has always played a major role in my life because I was either fighting my dad's case my cases it was all about evidence for me so I'm I like to see proof when I'm buying into something and for me uh there was enough proof it was almost overwhelming to me that uh scripture was real the Bible was God's word and that Jesus was my savior and I came out of there with that concept with that belief and that's where the transformation really started to take place because I said you can't have one foot in one foot out if you're going to be a different person you've got to be the right person and you got to maintain that and even though you know I say this you could take the boy out of Brooklyn you can't always take Brooklyn out of boy I still have things that I think about my head and sometimes reactions that I hold back for them thank God but overwhelmingly my faith is worn out and kind of keeps me on track that and family obviously so okay so you had you had three things going for you then when you made your transition to your new life you had the love of your wife and her family you had faith and you had your your proclivity for loyalty you said well when you went into your new life you went all in and so and then you also talked about the experience you had in solitary and the evidence that you gathered you were reading about different faiths what was it about why did you decide at that point to start studying Faith traditions and more particularly the Bible how was that a consequence of the influence of your wife or what do you think was happening there well it was uh to me it was divine intervention because the first night I was in the Hole uh when they violated my parole a couple of things happened I was walking out of a bank in Brentwood California and 15 agents captured me threw me into Paddy Wagon and just took everything I had at that point and they were upset with me because I wouldn't cooperate basically I was playing a game with them making them think I was because I was trying to just you know get on the right side of the government but not really giving them anything that they can work with and finally they knew that I was playing a game with them they violated my parole and said they were going to indict me on another case and that I spend the rest of my life in prison and they drove me to the Lockup in in La at that time they were going to transport me back to Brooklyn in the morning where the case was and that first night in the hole okay so let me give story I'm I'm confused here so tell me when that was happening this was this was before you struck the plea bargain with the government this was after I had done five years I was out on parole for 13 months a very difficult thing okay and then the violation and um that's okay okay yeah that first night in the hole was honestly I was a guy that was pretty much I can accomplish anything that I want to accomplish I was very determined uh I had I had confidence not arrogance but confidence in myself and um this was the first night when I said I think it's over for me I'm done I said they took all my money because they leaned all my bank accounts they said they were indicting me on another racketeering case and I know by fast experience you don't be the case with a public defender it cost me Millions to defend myself and and become Victorious at these trials I said my wife she waited for me five years uh 13 very bad months on parole I had a rough time you know people were after me it was a very difficult uh game that I was playing with them and I said how's she going to wait for me now you know I'm gonna lose the girl I did all of this for we had two little babies I said um and they're not going to put me out on the yard I said I got people looking to hurt me still because I walked away I'm going to spend the rest of my life in this hole and I really felt for the first time in my life hopelessness it's the strongest emotion that I ever experienced that up to that point and um quite honestly Jordan if I could have closed my eyes and not wake up that's what I wanted it was too painful to think about my future I said I was only 40 years old or something I said this is it I'm done and a prison guard walked by my cell and he looked in and he said you know you don't look good tonight are you okay and I I chased him away I should get away from me to leave me alone I don't want to see you guys and he came back about a minute later and he pushed the Bible through the slot in the door and you know it was after a little bit of time that I picked up the Bible and that's when I started my journey and it really started with the Book of Proverbs The Book of Proverbs really got me because of the wisdom and the intelligence of Solomon I was wow you know I never read the Bible you know I grew up a Catholic but in Catholic school you don't read the Bible you read the catechism priest reads the Bible from the pulpit on Sunday reads the gospel so it was my first real experience reading the Bible and I just got hooked and that's when the journey started and I said look you know the way I reasoned I said you know I made two very bad decisions in my life based upon loyalty I followed my father blindly into this life I took an oath and look where it got me I said I can't do this the third time you know if my what my wife and my mother-in-law are telling me about eternity and Christ is true I want to see it I want to believe it I want to see the evidence and so my journey was really in a search for evidence that this was the truth not justifying it and that's why I asked her I said I want to read about Hinduism I want to read about Judaism I want to read about all religions send me books and she did and I just came out of there believing that was a long time ago obviously it was in 19 I violated the parole in 1991 and spent from 91 to 95 uh in there but that's when my journey started and I just came out of there very positive that Christianity was the right way to go so in the first four or five years that you spent in prison you were already [Music] um affected in a positive manner by your wife's love and and by your decision at that point already to leave the life that you had led yes but you got out on parole and and things didn't work out well and you said you said that had you violated your parole when they picked you up well not you know I don't want to say this but not really because I had failed to file my income tax and the reason I failed to file it because they claimed that I had money buried in certain places and my lawyer advised me he said Mike if you don't file it's a misdemeanor if you file fraudulently and they ever find money of yours anywhere he said that's a felony they'll you know indict you again you're going to spend another 10 years in prison so he said just don't file so I didn't file when I was on Parole however I had to report my earnings to my parole officer every month so I wasn't not you know I was still letting the government know what I was earning but I didn't formally file my income tax and that was a violation and they tried to I I honestly Jordan I don't even remember some other silly little things they put together but you know when they want to violate your parole they're violating you you don't you know they don't need much at all so uh but that was the basis of it I see and so it was the second time that you were put in prison that really that really did you in the night that you were that you were thrown in yes that made you like Rock Bottom hopeless yes rather be dead than to continue the way that you were and that's also when this prison guard showed up with a Bible despite the fact that you chased him away yes and so what do you think you found so compelling about it especially when you were reading about other faiths at the same time you know the I think there was two things I mean obviously you know so many so many uh you know stories in the Bible were compelling to me but one of the things that got me I became a new testament guy because I really focused on you know the the manhood of Jesus number one I wanted to really look into Jesus character since he's the basis about faith and what kind of a guy he was because remember this George my whole life from the time I was a kid right through the time I was in that life the standard we had to live up to was to be a man's man that's it you had Integrity you had to be strong you had to be courageous and tough and treat women the right way was always that so I wanted to see I wanted to study Jesus of Nazareth first to establish if he was the kind of man that I would follow and he obviously came through with flying colors for me with that and then um one of the things that really got me was that after the apostles you know again it's always this legalization that I put in my mind after the apostles uh after Jesus death the way the apostles stood up and went to their death for someone that had died I really believed in the resurrection and if there's no Resurrection there's no really Christianity it's all about the resurrection and their testimony their witness meant so much to me it was so powerful and I said man I know guys in the life that were turning informants left and right and we were a life supposedly built on loyalty and here's 12 men or 11. um whose leader was dead and yet they were willing to go to their death as a result that was very powerful evidence to me and then things just kind of stemmed from that because you don't die for something you don't believe in you don't die for something that is not real to you at least I I can't I can't see that you know even if it's if it's wrongly real if it's real to you you may sacrifice yourself for it but if it's not you're not going to so that speaks to that loyalty that speaks to that loyalty that we were talking about earlier that ethos of loyalty that you had and so and then you also said that the the rules that you had abided by were the rules that you might say a man's man would abide by but they were insufficient in many ways given let's say what happened to your family and also your own experiences why did you find the example that you encountered in the gospels more compelling than that you said because people were willing to die for their testimony and that spoke to the Loyalty but what was it about the particulars of the Life of Christ that also you found convincing and convincing in a manner that would change the way that you were interacting with the world well you know I I started to think about what where where the Loyalty really was in our life and I you know loyalty can be built it could be built on love could be built on fear and I started to think about it the Loyalty in Mafia and closing or straight to a great degree was built on fear fearing of the consequences if you did something wrong so you were loyal and then I realized when all of these racketeering laws started to come into play the fear of the mafia was transferred to the fear of the government because the government now would tell somebody listen you're going to do 100 years if you don't cooperate with us and all of a sudden you know the fear was transmitted to that and so I said to myself you know what real loyalty is based upon love it's not fear and because if you love somebody you'll go to your death form I mean I know I would for my kids my wife and um yeah well you you also said that the Loyalty that you had to your father was basically based on love and not fear it was it was it was based upon love I didn't fear my dad in any way and like I said I mean I would have I would have walked into a room with him even after they told me you know she went along with the contract because I don't believe he would have ever done that and if he did well you know it would have been my tough luck but it was always love with my dad but um and I just saw the way Jesus expressed himself to his followers and you know no greater love than for someone to give their life for the people that they love and and um I just saw that as very powerful now before that without getting into all the detail I had to First establish that scripture was real and what I'm reading is real it's not a novel or a fairy tale or fake or any way and um you know I put that together methodically in my head at that time that no this is real this is trustworthy I can trust the Bible the evidence is pretty clear and so uh it's almost like I went to trial I took the Bible on trial during that time I had nothing but time on my hands Jordan so um you know I often wonder if I didn't get in the hole during that time if I ever would have strongly become a Christian because I think I needed that time totally to myself uh with no distractions whatsoever other than you know worrying about my family on the outside uh in order to really convince myself uh through this search that it was real you know in the past 25 years it's only become more real to me um you know not only in my life but in the life that I've seen you know and others that that God has done so you know I tell people you know this is not based upon some whim or some fairy tale or hey it's it's you know it feels good to go to church and and hear the message and see the you know get involved in the worship music for me it's it's pretty real not saying that I'm perfect in any way you know because you still have sinful Tendencies no doubt but you get better you have to be better if you're not better then something's wrong then it's not real so how did you start to change during the second prison term as a consequence of this unfolding decision what did you stop doing and what did you start doing and how did that change life for you in prison well again in the whole there's not much you can do you're just there 24 7 but um you know something happened during that time Jordan this this hatred that I had for law enforcement there was a case going on in Chicago and they wanted me to testify in that case as a matter of fact they said they were going to indict me probably something they couldn't have indicted me it was somebody that I knew and I'll tell you what happened they came and picked me up in the middle of the night and they were one FBI agent came and was bringing me to uh Chicago to talk with the U.S attorney and it was me and him I was handcuffed we were on a flight and we get to the airport in Chicago and I hardly even spoke to this guy I didn't want to talk to him and we get to the airport and he says to me wait here he took the handcuffs off me he said I'm going to get my car I said what I said I'm a federal inmate I said he's leaving me in the airport all alone now I'm wondering if this is a setup I'm saying what what's going on here I'm starting to get a little nervous you know and he doesn't come back for about 20 minutes and I'm in the airport by myself I'm looking around I'm saying something's going on here this guy first of all he loses job if I ran away be in a lot of trouble just left me there and then he comes back and I get in the car with him and I'm driving with him and I told him his name was George I said pull over he says well I should pull over right now and he said what's wrong I said no what's wrong with you what what's going on here as you leave me in the airport you're a federal agent 23 years on the job I hear I said you could have lost your job if I ran away he said I'm trying to establish some trust with you he said I just put my self on the line with you he says and I you got to be able to trust me and I got to be able to trust you and that whatever I'm asking you you're going to tell me the truth something happened I had never witnessed anything like that from a federal agent or anybody in law enforce well local cops different but I established a friendship with this guy and I said I'm going to tell you the truth it's not going to help your case but I'm going to tell you the truth and um he became a dear friend he turned my whole head around about law enforcement because I used to look at them like there were some aliens like they didn't know how to tell the truth they were corrupt they were just bad people and that would that yeah that put me on the road of changing my whole attitude and accepting the fact that no we were the bad guys you know I mean there's bed and everything you know but we were the bad guys these are decent people and since then I've met so many I have so many friends in law enforcement now yeah well it's a it's a rough thing when when when you put the Locale of evil somewhere that's convenient you know it should be somewhere inconvenient right it should be in the middle of your heart but if you see it in other people then as soon as you see it as essentially in other people then you're justified in taking whatever stance you want against those other people and then you have no responsibility except to take that stance and that's pretty convenient for you right because it's not your moral problem man it's them they're bad they're the ones who are bad right you know and now even on you know social media I have a big platform also you know people if I'll say something about my dad they'll come out and say well why do you defend your dad he was your murderer and he was this and that and that and I don't even get offended by that anymore because I understand that's that's the way people should normally think because that's the life that my dad was part of there's a life that I was part of at one time would have been terribly offensive to me but now I get it I understand that's the right way to think in many ways so you know I think it was a whole this had to be a whole change of mindset that occurred in me over a period of time just from meeting different people studying my faith um you know I met so many genuine people I one of the Pastors in my church the guy that married us she was Dr Myron Taylor he's passed on now but um when I was in prison in the hole he was sending me books and then he sent me money for commissary and I told my wife one day I said why is he doing this I don't know him well he doesn't have to send me money I don't feel right and she told me she said listen he loves the Lord and turn he loves you just don't worry about it buy some soup and commissary so um and he was such a genuine person genuine wasn't looking for anything he won anything he was just a real person and he was true about his faith he didn't hit me over the head with it or anything like that but I I just started to meet people that started to turn my head around and break this other mentality that I had it took it took time yeah well it's it's a 180 shift and it and with shifts like that there's often plenty of backsliding I mean you don't develop a whole new you overnight it takes a lot of discipline it takes as much discipline to become good as it took to become bad to begin with I would think or perhaps more so what have you done since this transformation that you think has been good and do you think that do you think do you believe do you feel that you have in some reasonable measure atoned for your past well you know it's very interesting that you say that I don't believe that we can ever make up for our past what's done is done and that's one of the things that I that have really attracted me to the Christian faith how do you make up for some things that you've done in your life they're already done they're done you know um especially in that life but based upon Christianity if you're sincerely sorry for your sins and accept Christ well then your sins are forgiven so do I believe my sins are forgiven absolutely I 100 believe that because that's a basis of our faith if I didn't believe that there's there's nothing to believe in and what happened Jordan when I was coming out of prison that last time they finally let me out of the hole for a few months that I had uh left to for my time well the FBI came to me and they said we need a favor from you we want you to participate in a video that all the pro leagues are getting involved in about the dangers of gambling to their athletes very long story short I participated in that video inside the prison and said this is how we set up the athletes this is exactly how we did it and this is what they should watch and and be careful of well when I got out the leagues came to me directly and to make a very long story short I started speaking with all the to all the bowl players back in 1996 when I got out of prison about the dangers of gambling the relationships that they keep that led to me speaking in churches giving my testimony and that's been going on since 1996 I've been all over the world and all different forums I've spoken at over 1600 churches and Ministries throughout my time so I think I think that was God's plan and purpose for me and I totally believed totally believe that you know what the enemy meant for bad God will turn around and use for good in our life if we allow him to so I think the platform that that I went into was was huge because people are so intrigued with the Mob Life Everywhere You Go I mean I found out you know in China the biggest movie ever in China was The Godfather I've experienced that in Singapore Australia you name it I just did a 16 City Tour and the United Kingdom and you would have thought I was a rock star I couldn't believe it yeah well I I think it I think it does have something to do with that strict sort of hyper masculine ethos that you know we live in pretty chaotic times morally and any any example that constitutes abiding by a strict code is therefore extremely attractive at an unconscious level I think one of the things that's so interesting about your story is that you abided by that ethos you saw that that despite the fact that it was strict and had a certain degree of admirable loyalty let's say associated with it and a willingness to make sacrifice that all things considered it was still extremely destructive and counterproductive especially at the familial level but also socially more broadly and then you found a path that you regarded as equally admirable or on in in in in in with regard to loyalty and the willingness to make sacrifices but also had additional components that your previous lifestyle didn't have at all and so that's that's resulted in this transformation and so it's it's it's a it's a story that's remarkable in two fronts is one is well you were an Exemplar of this first ethos that has this unconscious attractiveness associated with it and second you found that that wasn't good enough and you needed something and found something that served you and everyone else better so makes quite a compelling story and it's a hard one to deny especially when you've been that far out on the criminal front and then flip and then flipped around 180 degrees and also how painful that was to actually manage so yeah let me ask you this um I have said this many times I don't think that anything everything that's illegal is not necessarily immoral and I've said this I've said it from you know the the stage in church I said I have no moral issue whatsoever with stealing tax money from the government I'm being honest I would not lose a night's sleep in doing it I won't do it because I'm accountable now to God and to my to my family I don't want to put them in trouble I don't want to make mistakes like that people rely on me for a lot of things but morally I don't have a problem with it and I'm being honest and I often wonder myself I said well why don't you have a problem with it it's it's illegal you're not supposed to be doing it you're supposed to abide by the law but and like I said I won't do it but I don't have a moral issue with it so I don't know where that puts me at times is that still the old me or is that justified because I believe the government is corrupt I I mean I read about it every day I just wrote a book Mafia democracy about the government yeah well maybe maybe you can't maybe you can't fight corruption with corrupt you know maybe that just doesn't even even if you're even if your fundamental point is accurate you know and maybe that's part of the ethos of turning the other cheek which is very complicated thing to think through right because it can look like weakness that's for sure and I think often when people do it it is weakness it's not out of moral virtue but it can be I know I think if you turn the other cheek and you don't have to well then maybe that's something that's ethical and I do think it's very it's a dicey thing to fight corruption with corruption and maybe that was part of the problem with you regarding the police as enemies you know and and then being willing to engage in criminal Enterprise in some sense for for revenge is that even though to whatever degree your supposition was correct the manner in which you chose to fight wasn't wasn't productive it was just going to make the problem worse yeah that makes a lot of sense you know another thing I have this issue with my wife maybe you can help me there too my father always taught me he said Michael don't ever lie to hurt somebody but if you have to lie to help somebody that's okay and I've lived by that code throughout my life I'm not gonna lie to hurt somebody but I'll definitely lie to defend somebody and help somebody and my wife said a lie is a lie it's wrong I feel and I try to explain it I said wait a second if I had to protect our son from something that he did would you want me to just give him up if he was wrong or should I protect him I said my instinct is to protect him I don't know how to do it any other way I said I couldn't do it um and she you know she she has a problem with that I think you can find yourself in situations where the best alternative that confronts you is to lie about something but then I would say in all likelihood there was a whole series of micro lies that put you in that circumstance and so you have to be hyper awake to make truth always work for the good you know there's a poet in Canada Leonard Cohen and he said there's no decent place to stand in a massacre and the idea would be well by the time you're in the massacre you've made so many moral errors that all you have are variant forms of hell around you there's no there's lesser there's lesser Hells and greater Hells but that's it and I think very often when people are called upon to lie in the service of something positive they've already compromised themselves so badly in 50 ways that that's the best alternative that that that lays open to them you know I think I think your wife is fundamentally right I also think though that sometimes it's your best bet you know there's there's a classic example let's say if you were in Nazi Germany and you had Jews hiding up in your attic and the Nazis came to the door and and they said do you have any unwarranted people living in your household unauthorized people well if you weren't gonna lie you'd say yes and then those people would die but then I would say well you know 10 years ago you should have said something about the Nazis when they were first starting to gain power and you didn't and now you're in this hellish situation where you have to lie for the good and that means that you have already put yourself in a place that's not tenable and so that's how it looks to me interesting that makes sense yeah well it's it's it's it's a hard thing to make sure that you're stepping on firm ground with every word all the time that's that's a that's a very rough challenge but I but I do think that's what living in truth fundamentally means um it's a call to being awake Non-Stop and that may mean if you're not awake enough you may find yourself in a position where the best you have is a white lie you know people have asked me these sorts of things trivially like um if your wife comes to you and she's bought new outfit she says well how does this look um your best bet is to say well it looks great dear and and I would say that's not really your best bet because it's better if she can rely on your word and maybe you're the right answer in that situation is um don't ask me questions that you don't want an answer to right it's you know what I mean is that there if if you if you if you step carefully enough sometimes even in awkward situations and I know that's a relatively trivial example you can find a way of telling the truth that serves the good and doesn't betray someone that's still true you know you have to wrestle with yourself to make that happen but but you can make it happen almost always understood so yeah well look it was we're running out of time on this front I want to talk to you for another half an hour behind the daily wire plus platform as most of you who are watching and listening now know I do an extra half an hour interview with all my guests uh to walk through some of the more details some more of the details of their life and to find out I suppose what success looks like and so that's what we'll be delving into hello everyone I would encourage you to continue listening to my conversation with my guest on dailywireplus.com

Channel: Jordan B Peterson

Views: 1,780,971

Keywords: Jordan Peterson, Jordan B Peterson, psychology, psychoanalysis, existentialism, maps of meaning, free speech, freedom of speech, personality lectures, personality and transformations, Jordan perterson, Dr Peterson

Id: RzKM-VwriK0

Length: 105min 10sec (6310 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 03 2022