Mob Story Monday: Prison First Day In The Hole | Michael Franzese

just a normal morning for me you know i have breakfast with my wife i take my kids to school i'm living in brentwood california got to go to the bank so i go down to bank of america do my business in there i'm walking out i see a guy by the name of john laperla he was a postal inspector he was originally on my case in new york and i see him out in california and i thought maybe he moved out there so hey john how you doing you know next thing i know i got 15 agents outside they threw me in the paddy wagon and i'm on my way to three years in solitary confinement [Music] [Music] hey everyone welcome to another sit down with michael francis hope everybody is doing great getting closer to the end of summer you know hope you're having a great august any vacations that you might be taking that you missed last year because of the pandemic hopefully you're getting it all in this summer and enjoying it i've been working hard and as you can see we continue to do the uh uh you know as best as we possibly can on youtube providing the content for all of you i hope you're enjoying it so what are we gonna do today you know i get asked all the time about prison stuff people are intrigued about prison they want to know what prison life was all about it i get it you know we have a lot of people in prisons throughout this country in both state federal joints jails detention centers juvenile halls it's a big population and a lot of stuff goes on there you know a couple of weeks back we did the movie a shot caller we reviewed it and you kind of got an understanding of the gang culture in prison and what that's all about in some of the state prisons that took place here in california i get asked a lot about my prison experiences and i can tell you this i've either been in prison or visiting prison my entire life started with my dad i think the first time i went to see him i was you know seven or eight years old when he got in trouble early on my mother took me wasn't really a prisoner was a jail at that point but i remember you know forget things like that then obviously visiting him throughout the 60s when he was going through his stuff and then he went to prison in 1970 started out in leavenworth penitentiary in kansas on a federal case that you're i'm sure well aware of and then i had my own situations i was you know arrested i don't know 17 18 times so you know i had plenty of jail experience and then of course most of you know that i did my eight years in prison and of course a lot of things happen and i can go into incidents and i know there's a lot of people at least a few of them i should say that talk a lot about prison online and youtube and they educate some of you we all have stories you know i got a million of them too but this one in particular i mean i wouldn't bore you with everyday drudgery of prison and that's what it is it's just drudgery every day you know but there are a few things that stand out and one thing i want to tell you about today was the second time i was put in prison after i had gotten a 10-year prison sentence i did five years i was released on parole i was home for i believe 13 months and then violated my parole and was put back in prison this is the federal system so basically you know here's what happened you know i knew while i was on parole the feds had put a lot of pressure on me they were you know trying to have me become a major witness for those of you that know my story i had walked away from that life it became very public life magazine wrote it up it was on documentaries on television word was out on the street that i was in trouble all right a hit put out on me the fbi came and told me francis you're a dead man anyway you know cooperate with us i had a lot of that stuff going on hey look i'm going to be as honest as i possibly can i did want out of the life i knew that wasn't easy you don't just walk away i knew people were going to be upset with me i knew my father was not going to be happy about it you know to deal with my dad he was a made guy you know well respected guy in that life carmine persico is my boss it was a rough guy and i knew that it wouldn't sit well with him he and i at one time were fairly close he took it very personal when i walked away anyway i'm in trouble on the street right i moved out to california i'm with my wife you know i walked away from that life basically to give my family a life because i saw what happened in my family you know my mother brothers and sisters destroyed as a result of my father's involvement in that life and the 40 years he did in prison but here's what happened in this specific incident the feds were kind of getting upset with me you know they wanted me to cooperate i was sitting down with them i was talking to them but not giving them anything that i knew would send somebody to prison you know look i was kind of a guy that was able to manipulate things on the street and so i was kind of playing this little game with the feds at that point in time talking to them letting them believe that i was out of the life because i really was that wasn't a game but just wanted them to understand i don't want no more trouble you know yeah i'm talking to you i'm telling you about my life what do you want to know about me i'll tell you but i did it in such a way where they weren't satisfied you know they wanted more they had brought me in they picked me up while i was on parole to testify against a good friend of mine at the time john riggy he was the boss of the deer cavalcanti family back in new jersey and he and i had a deal together on these windows in manhattan that every window that came into manhattan was put into a building that had to pay us a tariff on and he and i through a series of circumstances we became uh friends jimmy rotunda was another friend of mine he was his underboss at the time so i was close with them the way this happened was there was somebody that got convicted on the giuliani case that i was tried for and eventually acquitted on one of my co-defendants was convicted and he became a government informant and he told the feds that john riggy and i were partners the feds bring me into newark john riggy was on trial and they were going to put me on a stand to testify long story short i didn't go on the stand to testify the government was mad at me i told him what really happened i didn't implicate john riggy they sent me back to california prosecutor was very upset with me you know started cussing me out whatever whatever send me back so i go back to california i knew i was in trouble at that point you don't get the feds mad at you when you do it doesn't end up good so i'm on parole anyway within 10 days i'm violated okay the circumstances of that day i um got up normally in the morning you know we were living out in california at breakfast with my wife sent the kids to school and i went to a bank in brentwood bank of america and i was making a deposit or i don't remember what i was doing in there i wasn't robbing a bank that's for sure however as i walk out of the bank i noticed a postal inspector by the name of john leperle he was on one of them he was one of the agencies that was on my initial case and i remember having a conversation with him when i took my plea and he said to me michael when i retire i want to move out to california maybe he can help me get a job i was the postal inspector asking me that i said sure john no problem he was a nice guy so i walk out of the bank and i see john le perla and they say hey john how you doing i said what did you retire you came out to california he says to me no mike he said you know don't don't get upset or don't get excited but he said we're here to arrest you i said arrest me i walk out of the bank there's probably 10 agents uh you know l.a county fbi they got a paddy wagon it was embarrassing you would have thought i was robbing the bank you know just grabbing me like that on a parole violation they'd throw me in a paddy wagon they went into the bank they leaned to my bank accounts put me in a paddy wagon and john didn't get in there but there was two agents in the paddy wagon with me and i said what's up with you guys and they said francis we're done with you we don't want you to cooperate don't tell us anything we got new charges coming down against you we violated your parole quote you'll never see the street again i said okay they went to my house with a search warrant my wife was devastated i mean it was it was a bad scene you know i just left the house she didn't know that i wouldn't be coming home for a number of years so anyway they take me to the federal jail in los angeles mdc and they put me in administrative detention which is another fancy word for the whole i'm in solitary six by eight cell and they put me in there and i got to be honest it was it was tough okay because i said you know what this is going to be a real problem for me i said they're indicted me on new charges what could it be there were so many informants out on the street now that were was was saying so many things about so many people because remember this was now in uh 1990 i believe a 91 i remember on the date and uh the racketeering act you know giuliani and company have put a lot of guys away a lot of guys have turned hard informants you know i had some exposure on the street and i'm saying man what are they going to come up with now is it going to be a murder charge what are they going to come up with now and i'm in there i can honestly say i think it was the worst night of my life up till that point because i said look i said my wife i said i did five years in prison she was 21 years old when we got married we had two little kids three kids at that point they were babies and i said she's 27 she waited for me for five years 13 months on parole we had a tough parole time um she's 27 years old how's she going to wait for me now i don't know how long i'm going to be here i said i'm going to lose my wife and i did all of this for my wife i walked away from that life because of her i say i'm going to lose her i said they can't put me out on the yard i said they're going to use the excuse that people are trying to kill me they're going to hold me in administrative detention which is again a fancy word for the whole when you don't do anything to get yourself locked in the hole they say it's administrative detention for your own protection or whatever excuse they want to use that's administrative attention i had already done all time so i understood that i said so i'm going to spend the rest of my life in this 6x8 cell if they convict me on another charge i signed the parole violation i can't get more than five years or four years i think was the max at that time i said all right if i could do four years i'll do four more i said what else are they going to come down with now you got to understand i had already been through five trials i took a plea i got a 10 year sentence i had a 15 million dollar restitution the government went through me like grant through richmond cost me millions of dollars in legal fees the first five years i supported my family they didn't have to work you know i made arrangements for them to to survive during that time i said what's going to happen now i mean the money is running out they're watching me like crazy i said this is a bad situation i want to tell you how bad and i don't care admitting this you know some people want to you know be all macho and admit you know don't worry about it i'll do all the time yeah okay that's good for you but i'm gonna i'm gonna be honest with you i was scared you spending the rest of your life in prison i was only 39 or 40 years old that could be a long time as it turns out my dad lived to 103. so if i had even half of his genes i was going to live a long time in the hole i said six by eight cell i said losing everything i got losing my wife my children it's a scary thing you know i'll tell you how scared i was i used to demean people that were suicidal i called him weak i said how do you not face up to your troubles you're weak i don't do that anymore i wasn't suicidal that night i wasn't that brave but honestly i wanted to lay my head on that cot and just not wake up it was too painful to think of what was coming up too painful to think of my future too painful to think that i had to have my wife like my mother did go and visit my father for 20 years in prison made a basket case out of her destroyed my family i said is this what i'm going to cause this young girl probably won't be with me that long who knows but i got to spend my life like an animal in this cell you know i'd rather go to sleep and not wake up that's not bravery that's that's just the fact you know it's again i'll say this you know people oh you know you should get the death penalty try putting somebody in a 6x8 cell in solitary confinement away from everybody for the rest of their life if you don't think that's punishment go try it out try one day try to try a week and tell me the death penalty is probably merciful at that point in time you know but i don't believe in the death penalty for another reason and i'll tell you why and i'll say it again because our government makes mistakes there were 200 and some odd people that i know of that were freed that were on death row through dna evidence you don't put people to death even one time make a mistake if you make a mistake one time and you put an innocent person to death the whole system snakes you don't do it put them in jail for the rest of their life trust me it's punishment in the hole and that's where people go when they have solitary like that so i'm lying on that con i'm saying you know what i'm done prison guard walks by my cell he looks in on me opens the flap he says francis you okay you don't look good tonight i said hey get away from me i don't want to see you or anybody else leave me alone get away i chased him he left comes back about a minute later and this flap of the door opens pushes something through boom falls on the floor i hear like a thump i was kind of groggy just laying there eyes closed and i looked down being honest it was a bible now you know what i don't want to see a bible you know look i grew up catholic my wife and my mother-in-law trying to turn me into a christian i was paying attention being nice but you know what i wasn't really buying into it i'm got my own life and i got to try to get myself out of this mess i thought i was a guy always in control of myself and my fate my destiny but i'm looking down at that bible and i'll be honest with you i'm getting mad i'm getting angry i don't want a bible i'd rather have a bottle of prozac or something you know forget what i was going through i'm looking down i got really upset i jumped off the cot not exaggerating telling you the truth it's not drama it's reality i jumped off the cot i picked up that bible and i slammed it against the cinder block wall as hard as i could just everything came out of me and i'm standing there for about a minute and then you know i said to myself you know what i got nothing but enemies both sides on the street and in government i don't need another enemy now i believed in god god makes sense to me i believe in intelligent design and i just don't understand how everything can exist without intelligent design that's me that's that was my opinion of of god at creator i said you know what i don't need another enemy and i picked up the book and i looked up at that cement ceiling and i said you know what god if you're up there show me give me something to make me feel better man i can't deal with this i'm i'm really upset tonight i'm having a problem help me out and i'm holding a book you know i went to catholic school you don't really read the bible in catholic school you read the catechism priest reads the bible from the pulpit on sunday reads the gospel so i wasn't familiar with the bible but i'm holding a book and i look down and a book just opens up just like that and it opens up to the book of proverbs and was that a coincidence maybe at the time i don't see it that way now but at the time i did and i started reading the book of proverbs it's a historical book it's history it's about king solomon way back when and he wrote i think 90 of the book of proverbs and i started to read it and i don't know if you ever read that book but solomon was brilliant not only was he wealthy wealthiest guy on a planet but he was brilliant and i start reading it and i'm i'm starting to get into it and starting to forget what was going on around me i knew they were going to transport me back to brooklyn in the morning i had to face the judge judge henderson morrison is dead now and i start to forget a little bit about what's going on around me and i'm i'm reading a book i'm saying man this guy's smart he's brilliant and i came to a bible verse that kind of just stopped me cold now i want to make this clear all right i don't have any supernatural connection to god i never saw god in a dream i never had a vision he doesn't speak to me audibly where i can hear him never had any of that so this just kind of happened that night i read this verse and it kind of struck me cold and it was proverbs 16 7 and it says when a man's ways are pleasing to the lord even his enemies are at peace with him now you know what got me the enemy's part i just finished telling you i had nothing but enemies at that point in time i'm saying even his enemies are at peace with him i'd give anything to have my enemies at peace probably wouldn't be in a hole if it was for that and then i get kind of convicted i'm just thinking of the verse stuff like this happens and i'm saying when a man's ways are pleasing to the lord and i kind of just for that moment started to review my life and i said you know what yeah i left the life i'm walking away but i did it for my own purpose i did it for my own benefit i didn't do it for anybody else's benefit i certainly didn't do it for god yeah i did it for my wife and my little children because i wanted to give them a better life but maybe it was kind of selfish on my part too after all i did defy my oath i betrayed my oath of omerta i took that off and even though i didn't put people in trouble i still violated my oath i betrayed it so i said have my ways been pleasing to god i don't think so so i kind of got convicted then i started to read a little bit more because the book was intriguing then it came to another verse and this verse now i'm going to tell you something people it's become the verse of my life i really mean that you know i want to tell you something i'm not here to preach to you you know as christians it's not our job to preach and convert you and make you a christian any christian that tries to do that is doing the wrong thing that's not what the bible tells us to do it's not what we're supposed to do and it's not what we can do only god can turn you into anything a christian for sure but it is our obligation to share what god has done in our lives mark 16 15 when jesus said go out and share preach the gospel the good word rather to all of creation so we are obligated to share i'm sharing a story with you tonight that's all it is you do what you want with it not forcing it on you this verse proverbs chapter 3 verses 5 and 6 says trust in the lord with all your heart lean not on your own understanding because you know why people sometimes we just don't understand we don't know what to do i didn't know what to do that night in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight after i read that verse i got angry again and i said you know what god come on i trusted my father more than anything i followed him into this life i took a blood oath became a made guy followed him into the life became a made guy in that life spent all these years and look where it got me i may be here for the rest of my life i said if you're god and you can do something about this i'm challenging right now prove it to me show me some evidence that you really do exist that's what came into my head you know my wife my mother-in-law had been talking to me about god and all that and i was being polite and i was listening but you know i'm a guy you got to show me the evidence i don't take things at face value that easily you know i know a little bit about evidence i've been to trial so many times grand jury's investigated my father's case i kind of think in terms of evidence so you got to show me stuff i said god show me prove it to me well make a long story short i spent 29 months and seven days in the hole they gave me four years on the parole violation the big case that they were trying to build against me fell apart they couldn't indict me so the bottom line i had four years to go they kept me in that hole 29 months and seven days six by eight cell 24 7 me and god there's nobody else in there and i took that bible and i read it inside out and upside down i don't know how many times if you see my prison bible there's more of my notes on there than there is scripture because i scribble on it don't ever give me a book to read i'm going to scribble all over it that's just how i do things and i had i told my wife i said you know what you want me to believe this i said send me in some books she said well you know christian books i said no i want books on everything everything i want to see muslim faith i want to see hindu i want to see buddha i want to see everything i got nothing but time on my hand send me everything she did started send me in books started to read and i had christian books too the first christian book i read was chuck coulson's born again i was intrigued by it good book i had a sony walkman and i used to uh listen to pastor greg laurie never heard of him before but he interpreted scripture in such a way that made it easy for me to understand as i was reading it and i want to tell you this in those 29 months and seven days it became very clear to me that the bible was truly god's word and i became a follower of christ as a result of that now that was my experience i got out of prison in 95. so for the last 35 years this is what i believe it's only become more clear to me throughout the years for a number of reasons i'm not going to get into that i'm just telling you my prison experience and i will tell you this i don't know if guys want to play a hero it's not easy to be in solitary confinement i learned through that time we weren't meant to be solo creatures we were meant to be social creatures when those lights went out at night i heard a lot of moaning and groaning saw a lot of stuff go on in the hole as best as i could see it there were times when i had a steel door i couldn't see anything if i looked through the hatch there were times when they moved me i spent 11 months out of that 29 months in the hole in l.a county jail they had bars so i was able to see stuff that's when i was in the hole with the menendez brothers and the ninja killer and everybody else same tier as o.j simpson eventually came on a lot of stuff goes on because people they kind of lose it some of them it's not easy don't anybody tell you any differently it's tough if i have my bible and my beliefs during that time and of course my wife and children something that i was motivated had incentive i never gave up i said i'm getting out of this thing i'm going home i fought my case for me there a whole lot of stuff but you know bible really helped me you know some people say oh you know it's a crutch not a crutch kind of a crutch you either believe something and you act upon it or you don't it worked for me i believed it and since i came home it's only become more powerful to me so that's my story and once again you know people say to me michael ah you know come on christians i said look i said let me break it down to you very very simple let's make believe we're in a burning building we're up on the 19th floor building is burning i've been in that building many times you've never been there i've been on that floor there's five doors that'll get you that you could walk through but only one door will get you out to safety should i look at you and say hey take your pick or should i lead you through that door well as christians that's what we see ourselves doing we're obligated to talk to you about it like i am now but it's your choice which door to choose totally on you we have a free will in this life nobody's going to take that away from you god is not going to take that away from you communism might other things might prison does but not god i can tell you this you know a lot of other things happen but i did spend 29 months and seven days in that hole the warden finally let me out when i had six months to go and i already told that story so i'm not going to tell it now maybe another time sometimes you think things are coincidences and sometimes they're not just before i went in colombo family was going to war my family i felt a tremendous pull i was on parole i felt a tremendous pull to go back and be with my guys because the guy that was trying to take over for personal vicarino was not a guy that i liked and there were two factions there was a persical faction and the arena faction now persico was mad at me because i walked away from the life in my head i want to prove it to you that i'm still loyal i'm not looking to hurt so i'm going to come back and help but i couldn't violate my parole what am i going to tell my wife i was so i i was just so torn and i had almost made the decision to go back break my parole it was just killing me inside and then i walked into the bank and walked out and get arrested the war starts it lasts for three years i'm in the hole that whole time 13 guys i believe got killed i think 63 guys in the family got indicted and another 18 or 19 became informants and i'm in the hole now was i protected at that point if i would have violated what would have happened maybe i would have got involved in the war maybe i got killed indicted who knows i'm in the hole you know sometimes when we're at our worst i think god is at his best maybe i was there for a reason i don't have a crystal ball and i'm not a prophet i don't know and i don't hear things audibly but coincident rather that i'm in that hole when a war is raging in our family and then i come out and for the last 25 years i've been given a platform that's taken me all around the world so you'll figure it out because i do believe god has a plan and a purpose for us and sometimes we don't know what it is but i believe it so here i am 35 years later and been through a lot of struggles and challenges but i have no complaints people i really don't you know whatever i've been through is a blessing because i could either be dead or in prison for the rest of my life so i consider myself very fortunate every day and that's all i can tell you so what do you get out of this that's up to you like i said i'm not imposing anything on you and i'm not trying to turn you into anything i'm just telling you my story you can read my books doing a television series now on my life a lot of this is going to come out it's not a christian series by any means it's a hard-hitting mob series about my life something that i'm pretty uh intrigued about i got a new book coming out mafia democracy you'll be seeing it soon so that's it you take from this what you would like just another story but it's a true one so hope you enjoyed it michael francis.com the crew keep coming we keep building 18 000 people in there and they're getting a lot out of it my inner circle i love them all we're getting to uh we're getting together i believe in october it's all being worked out now we're going to meet so many of you we do our zoom calls every two weeks i get q a's during that time uh people are sending me things we have content it's just great people are encouraging one another and it's all about encouragement people and during this pandemic it was just a blessing to so many don't ask me ask them get in the inner circle and ask them they'll tell you join.michaelfrancis.com how do i always leave you same way from the heart be safe be healthy god bless and yes [Music] you

Channel: Michael Franzese

Views: 404,817

Keywords: michael, franzese, michael franzese, mafia, mob, mobster, mob boss, mafia boss, caporegime, colombo, colombo family, colombo mafia, gambino, bonanno, lucchese, genovese, al capone, gotti, american mafia, italian mafia, cartel, prison, federal prison, prison gangs, fat tony, sonny franzese, solitary confinement, prison hole stories, prison shu, prison stories, mafia in prison, first day in prison, gangs in prison, white gangs, italian gangs, mob monday, mob stories, mob story monday

Id: D1N7JJsf9rw

Length: 29min 16sec (1756 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 30 2021