Episode 1: Michael Franzese RMN Podcast

00:00:00 - I sold my soul, I prostituted my talents for R.M.N.

00:00:18 - Yeah, that's right.

00:00:21 - Thank you for doing this little interview with me about about yourself well thank you

00:00:42 - I'm here in New York and I'm very excited to speak with you.

00:00:47 - Hi, good stuff, good stuff.

00:00:49 - Just for everyone that's listening, Michael, because we're doing this in different sections and there may be people out there that don't know who Michael Francis is and obviously I know everything there is to know about you, but perhaps the listener does not.

00:01:06 - So could you explain a little bit about who you are and a little bit about your background?

00:01:13 - Sure.

00:01:14 - My name is Michael Francis and I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.

00:01:18 - I lived a life a little bit differently from others.

00:01:21 - My dad, Sonny Francis, was the underboss of the Colombo crime family, one of the five New York Mafia La Cousinosa families.

00:01:29 - So I grew up in that lifestyle.

00:01:31 - My dad was a very powerful, highly motorized figure in that life.

00:01:36 - He was always a major target of law enforcement, a very, very high-profile, well-known guy.

00:01:43 - I grew up in that atmosphere, but my dad didn't want that life of me, he wanted me originally to go to school and an education, have a career.

00:01:52 - And I was on that road until my dad got very serious trouble in the 60s, he was indicted several times to the state of New York, very serious crimes, went to trial, was acquitted, found not guilty on those cases.

00:02:04 - But then he was indicted again in 1966 in federal court for masterminding a nationwide string of bank robberies.

00:02:12 - He was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

00:02:15 - And would often do his time in Levenworth in the century in 1970.

00:02:19 - I was actually a pre-med student at the time in a university in Long Island.

00:02:24 - I was devastated when my dad went in.

00:02:27 - He was 50 years old when he went in.

00:02:29 - I figured at 50 on top of that he would never come out of prison alive.

00:02:33 - At that point in time, through multiple conversations with my dad, my dad wanted me to enter his life and try to help him get out of prison, which was essentially a death sentence.

00:02:45 - And so he proposed me for membership in that life when I was 22 years old.

00:02:52 - And in 1975, I became a maid member.

00:02:55 - I took an oath and became a maid member of the Colombo-Krantz family.

00:02:59 - I was a soldier in that life for many years.

00:03:01 - And in 1980, I was elevated to the position of captain of the Coppola regime.

00:03:07 - And for the next 15 years or so, I operated in active capacity and made a tremendous amount of money.

00:03:15 - And as a result, I became a pretty notable guy, was a major target of law enforcement.

00:03:19 - I was indicted myself five separate times.

00:03:24 - I went to trial five times, I was acquitted, I was dismissed in each case.

00:03:29 - I was indicted by Rudy Giuliani in 1984.

00:03:32 - I was the first major mob guy, indicted under the racketeering statute, fortunately after a several month trial I was found not guilty in that case or I wouldn't be here today. Wow. And then through you know a series of events I was making movies I had a production company on LA and I met a young girl on the set who was the dancer, she was 20 years old and I felt very much in love with her. She found my wife was 35 years and meeting her and wanting a different life from my wife for children, I decided to walk away from that life or try at least something that you're not allowed to do. As a result of that decision, I ended up taking a plea to racketeering on another case that we're preparing against me. I got a 10-year prison sentence. I had a $15 million resolution, $5 million. As for torture, I had a jet plane and a helicopter at that point in time, because I was pulling down because all my different operations cost us $7 or $8 million a week.

00:04:36 - So I gave it all up, went to prison, and during that time, it became public that I was walking away from that life as a result.

00:04:44 - I was estranged for a while from my dad.

00:04:48 - A contract was put out on my life by my boss at that time called my first ago.

00:04:52 - I had a very rough time in prison because the government wanted me to become a major witness, so I refused that.

00:04:58 - I never testified about any of my former associates.

00:05:02 - I didn't cooperate in that regard.

00:05:05 - They gave me a hard time.

00:05:07 - And to end this, make a very long story short,

00:05:10 - I've been extremely fortunate over the last 25 years in that I've been become a speaker.

00:05:17 - I've been speaking all over the world, mainly about encouraging people and giving them hope that they can turn a rough lifestyle around like I was able to do.

00:05:27 - And to turn it into a career for me, you know, they're making movies about me, documentaries,

00:05:32 - I'm all over YouTube, I've got 60 or 70 million views now.

00:05:36 - I've written four books, and life goes on.

00:05:40 - I'm very fortunate, I have seven children,

00:05:43 - I have grandchildren, and you know, things have been pretty good the last several years.

00:05:49 - I have to mention too, my dad, he's 40 years on that 50.

00:05:54 - He was released from prison in 2017 at the age of 100.

00:05:58 - He was the oldest inmate in the federal system at the time of his release.

00:06:02 - My dad passed away two weeks ago at the age of 103.

00:06:06 - He was the oldest living mob guy in America, quite possibly in the world, so.

00:06:11 - I'm sorry to hear that, Michael.

00:06:13 - I'm really sorry to hear that news.

00:06:14 - That part's not so good news and, you know, my sincere sympathy with you with that regard.

00:06:24 - I mean, I don't think many people will reach 103, to be honest, so that's, I mean, but that's-

00:06:31 - No, I don't think so.

00:06:32 - He had a tremendous will to live.

00:06:34 - I gotta say that for a lot of adversity, he ended up, you know, living longer than anybody else I ever do, that's-

00:06:43 - Exactly, exactly.

00:06:45 - I've got some questions for you, Michael, because that was fantastic, you know, about everything about you so everyone's sort of filled in with all the different elements of who you are and where you came from but I mean in in this journey you mentioned you gave it all up for love which is a fantastic message for everyone that's in you know I mean but it's not been an easy journey or and I think that's partly you know part of what we're discussing here is is what what you would maybe talk about on a stage show or what you would actually talk about during a seminar or talk about when you're actually going out there and delivering some of these fantastic talks that you do, that you know what's on YouTube is not what people are going to experience live, what people are going to experience live is very much a piece of you, a piece of magic perhaps, a little piece of magic in the pocket that they can leave with. And I think this is, you know, so more in depth into who you are and what you are, because since I've started watching Michael Francis' videos or interviews or any of these things,

00:08:00 - I'm amazed at just how diversified that you actually are on a lot of subjects and a lot of matters. I see you doing everything from your opinion of the latest mafia movie lately to gaming and all the way through to business seminars or given the business people high advice about about what the decision making and the art of negotiation. So explain some of that stuff.

00:08:32 - Well yeah Rory I've become you know a pretty sought after speaker because number one there's really nobody out there that has the extent of knowledge about that life that I have, both through my own experiences and my dad's experiences. I became a pretty notable figure because the government, I had a lot of success in that life. As a result, I became a major target. I dealt with John Gotti and Paul Castellano and all the major names because of the business that I was involved in and and so when I get on the stage people always want to hear the story and I tell them the story they're always very inquisitive we do a Q&A

00:09:18 - Rory it could last for two or three hours if we don't cut it off we can get a whole night people have questions about their life. I've got my hand up already Michael here I've got my hand up already with the question. I tell you, Rory, I was in Singapore. In Singapore, and my host, when they brought me in to speak, said, Mike, we promised the VIPs a Q&A, but they said, don't worry about it. Singaporeans are very reserved. They don't ask a lot of questions.

00:09:49 - You'll be out of here quick. I said, oh, no problem. You know, I'm here for you. And we were there two and a half hours. They had to chase us out of the venue. So many questions.

00:09:57 - And that happens every time, but you know what I have to do is people are fascinated on how

00:10:04 - I'm still alive basically because you know you don't leave that life walk away publicly like I did and get away with it and so people are fascinated because everybody predicted my death from law enforcement to the media to people on the street and I'll give you a statistic that's kind of alarming and you know raise your eyebrows a little bit.

00:10:25 - The night I got made and I took the oath, six of us took the oath that night. It was 44 years ago. It's coming October. Well, out of the six, I'm the only one alive. Not one of them died in natural causes. Every one of them were murdered. We had a big war in our family in the early 90s. You know, aside from that, Fortune magazine wrote a huge article in 1986, the 50 biggest, most powerful Bob losses in America. It's a huge article. I have the magazine. They covered six of us. Mainly I was one of the six. They actually had a chart with the 50 of us on there, according to rank and wealth and power. I was number 18 in rank. I was the youngest guy on the list. I was five behind John Gotti at the time. John was my friend, but he hadn't been made boss yet. He was number 13. What's important about that list is that today, from 34 years later, out of the list of 50, 48 of them are dead. Number 49, I heard, just passed away not too long ago. I haven't verified it, but that's what I was told. And I'm the only one standing, number 50, out of all of these guys. So people are amazed at how I'm still alive.

00:11:35 - Well, long, long, long may that continue, long may that continue, Michael, I mean, I mean, but, but I mean, you know, it's an incredible story, an incredible journey. But you've now taken so all of the things that you've learned through all of that life you've brought, you're bringing to a stage, you're using the art of negotiation as, you know, I mean,

00:12:01 - You can sit down with business people and say, look, you know, this is the way that to negotiate this tricky deal or this is the way to talk yourself out of this situation.

00:12:13 - I mean, that's incredible.

00:12:15 - I mean, that is such a value.

00:12:17 - I mean, that's just absolutely outstanding.

00:12:20 - I mean, could you give me a sample of what that would be like?

00:12:23 - Well, Rory, in our life, you know, I had to sit down.

00:12:28 - Every time we had a meeting that could have been very serious, could have been a matter of life and death, it could have been a major business situation, a negotiation, an argument, we would do it as what we call sit-down.

00:12:42 - And at that time, we had certain rules with a sit-down, how do you have to conduct yourself?

00:12:46 - And you had to follow those rules.

00:12:47 - If you didn't follow those rules, even if you were right, you were automatically wrong.

00:12:52 - So you had to be, you had to really have a negotiation.

00:12:55 - So you had to know how to outsmart people.

00:12:58 - So the art of negotiation became something that, because I was so active, I mastered it in a way.

00:13:05 - And I negotiated and sat down with John Gotti several times with Paul Castellano over a deal that I had.

00:13:11 - And because of the extent of business that I was involved in, I was constantly sitting down and negotiating with members of my family and other families.

00:13:20 - And so I teach people the art of negotiation is something that you must learn in life because look, all of life is a negotiation.

00:13:28 - Whether it's, you know, you negotiate with your wife and you're married.

00:13:32 - I mean, you got to negotiate everything in life.

00:13:33 - You know, I've written a book about it and it's been a very popular book.

00:13:39 - And I do a lot of business forums.

00:13:41 - I do a lot of major groups like that.

00:13:45 - You know, so there's things that I learned on the street that other people just don't have knowledge of that I've been able to bring into the legitimate world and it's been successful for me.

00:13:58 - We get questioned a lot about them.

00:14:00 - So it's that, it's really, you know, how to turn your life around.

00:14:03 - Or, you know, when you come from the mentality in the street life, like I did, and then get a complete change or transformation,

00:14:11 - I should call it, people are fascinated by that because a lot of people are struggling and facing challenges in their own life.

00:14:18 - They don't have to overcome them.

00:14:19 - No, no, no, I see that as a fabulous, fabulous message and a real motivational one as well. What is the, I mean for someone like yourself,

00:14:31 - I heard a funny story and the reason I'm bringing up is to give a sample of the fact that there is humour behind the sort of mafia side of things, the John Gottys or even your side. Now this story

00:14:45 - I heard about yourself and that you almost lost your life through chickens.

00:14:53 - Well yeah, I had basically was a negotiation with Paul Castellano who was the boss of the

00:14:58 - Campino family at that time and I got into a dispute with his nephew over chickens. I had a market and I was buying chickens from them. I had two and they sold me a bunch of chickens that were rotten. I in turn sold them to people. I didn't know they were rotten. But the people brought them back. It was a couple of hundred dollars a deal. And as a result, I had to...

00:15:22 - They didn't want to take them back. They didn't want to pay me, you know, refund the money.

00:15:26 - So I got into a big argument with the boss or the campedon family at that time. That's something you don't do. But it turned out to be a whole big deal. This was when I was very young. I had just gotten into the life. And I learned pretty quickly how to conduct myself in a meeting like that when you're sitting down with somebody like Paul.

00:15:44 - So I had a bunch of these kind of sit down throughout my tenure in that life for sure.

00:15:51 - And I got to be honest, Rory, I kind of mastered the skill and came out on top most of the time.

00:15:58 - And I was very fortunate to be able to obtain that knowledge and just really learn that skill.

00:16:03 - Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I mean, so lots of humorous things there, lots of, lots of things that you can throw out there. Now, I was going to talk to you also about the fact that, you know, you're doing a film as well. You've got a film getting made or a documentary or something like that.

00:16:25 - Well, they're doing a TV series based upon my life now, and also a feature film.

00:16:29 - So, you know, we just recently got into, you know, people have been approaching me for the last 15 years to do a movie on my life.

00:16:38 - I just never wanted to do it.

00:16:40 - But, you know, I think timing is everything in life and it's converging on me now.

00:16:47 - And, you know, so we just signed a deal with a major production company that'll be announced probably in the next 30 days.

00:16:54 - And the same on the feature film, so these are both going forward.

00:16:58 - I've had a number of documentaries on the history channel and various other channels, they're on there.

00:17:06 - And just a lot happening at this point in time.

00:17:10 - So let's talk about, you're coming over to the UK to do a tour.

00:17:18 - For the customers coming into the auditoriums or the theatres to see a seminar, a Michael Francie seminar, apart from the story line of, you know, the fantastic story line, but apart from that, what are they likely to see or what are they likely to hear from you?

00:17:41 - Well, look, again, they're going to hear stories about that life that are both educational, humorous, serious, because I was very active, and a lot of the things that I did in that life are curious to people, you know, again, they want to know about that life, whether it be because of the movies, because of the media, people are intrigued, I found all over the world.

00:18:07 - And I heard, you know, the number one movie ever in China was The Godfather, and I found that out to be true wherever I go, so they're going to hear mob stories that they've never heard before. They can't hear from anyone else. They're all genuine. They're gonna know about my activities. I'll talk about things that I did with Gotti and Castellano and my father.

00:18:29 - And then, you know, we'll get into some things that, look, there aren't some funny things that happen in our life. And I got a lot of stories believed I can keep you here all night long stories that intrigue people. So we'll get into that. And there'll also be, you know, an uplifting part of it because people, again, they walk into that room with certain challenges and struggles that they've had in their own life. And when they hear that I've been able to transform myself from some very difficult conditions to where I am today, it's very encouraging and uplifting to people. So they're going to get that part about it.

00:19:02 - You know, I'm going to talk to them a little bit about, you know, some of the business deals that I was involved in, you know, one of them being a multi-million dollar deal that was made huge headlines in New York for many, many years and all over America I should say.

00:19:17 - So they're going to get a little bit of everything from me, Rory. And I've been holding audiences pretty captivated now for over 20 years all over the world. So I'm sure that, you know,

00:19:28 - I have a big fan base from the United Kingdom through social media and through a show that I did there not too long ago with Sir Trevor McDonald. So and as a result of that, we've

00:19:40 - We've had a lot of people now that are in contact with me from social media.

00:19:43 - So they're going to be a great audience.

00:19:45 - I can feel it.

00:19:46 - I know that they're intrigued by this.

00:19:48 - The last time I was there, I was in a little town called Short Bridge, I think, or Short Bridge.

00:19:53 - It's in London.

00:19:56 - And I was in a hotel that they turned in.

00:19:59 - It was once a jail and they turned it into a hotel.

00:20:04 - And I was in the same place where they had the,

00:20:09 - Oh, what's the name of the two brothers?

00:20:11 - The Craze, the Craze, yeah.

00:20:14 - You remember the two brothers?

00:20:15 - Yeah, yeah, the Craze family, from London.

00:20:17 - Yeah, the Craze, the Craze.

00:20:19 - Oh, the Craze, yeah, the Craze.

00:20:21 - They turned one of the, through the jail cells that they were in, they turned it into a little room.

00:20:26 - I spent some time in there and everybody wanted to come in and take pictures with me in there, so look, the people there are wonderful.

00:20:32 - I'm looking forward to it and I guarantee they're gonna have a great experience.

00:20:35 - We all are.

00:20:36 - No, no, last time you were over as well, Michael,

00:20:38 - You spoke at Cambridge University to all the students there, which was fantastic.

00:20:44 - And I mean, you've been over here, but you haven't been, to my knowledge, to Ireland and to Scotland and to Wales and these territories and countries.

00:20:59 - And so, I mean, that's quite exciting.

00:21:02 - To my knowledge anyway,

00:21:03 - I don't know that you've been there before or done gigs with.

00:21:06 - I have not. I have not, Rory. I look very forward to being there. I stayed mainly in a few cities in the UK and in England, I should say, and then spent some time in London, but not outside of that.

00:21:22 - So let me just ask a fun question now. What do you know about Scotland, Mike, apart from the

00:21:27 - Gulf? I was going to say, I'm an avid golfer, so I want to know more about the Gulf there,

00:21:34 - That's where it was born. But I don't really know much about Scott. You know, I got to be on it.

00:21:39 - You're going to love it. It's like stepping into a postcard, Michael. So you're going to love it.

00:21:43 - You're going to love it. So apart from the motivational side as well, Michael, I mean, obviously the storyline is incredibly motivational how you managed to leave that life and come over into a business life. Apart from that, I mean, is there any sort of bullet points that you could say that you will cover or discuss during a seminar or any of these types of things?

00:22:11 - Well, again, you know, I wrote a book, I'll make you know if you can't refuse it, the business book. And basically what I do in that book is I tell people how, excuse me,

00:22:22 - And when you're in the mob life, you live under a Machiavellian ideology, where basically the end justifies the means, and you can do anything that you need to do to be successful, but you always have to appear to be upright and honest and have integrity, and we operated under that principle.

00:22:46 - When I went to prison, we were practically ordered to read the book, The Prince, that

00:22:52 - Machiavelli wrote.

00:22:54 - And a lot of the ideology of the mob is very Machiavellian.

00:22:58 - And when I got out, when I started to have this transformation of my life, I was very intrigued by the book of Proverbs and Solomon.

00:23:09 - And it doesn't matter what faith you on, that's not a faith thing.

00:23:12 - Solomon was just a very brilliant guy, he was a king in Israel, very brilliant.

00:23:15 - And some of his ideology was fascinating to me.

00:23:20 - So I kind of switched from Machiavelli to a Solomon way of thinking, and I make the contrast in the book.

00:23:29 - And it's proved to be very successful.

00:23:31 - People that really enjoy it.

00:23:32 - I go into a lot of different principles in that book, and I'll be going over them, you know, in these seminars.

00:23:39 - And believe me, I've done seminars at the highest level with people from corporate

00:23:43 - America.

00:23:44 - And this is a different take on business they've had before.

00:23:48 - So it's very intriguing, and I enjoy doing it.

00:23:52 - And I don't know how much we can do in one session.

00:23:55 - We haven't talked about how long the session is going to be, but I guarantee there'll be something for everybody there.

00:24:02 - Michael, I think we have everything we need.

00:24:07 - I think we've covered all bases and all grounds here.

00:24:10 - It gives me the voiceover for everything here.

00:24:13 - So I think we're pretty good.

00:24:14 - So thank you for answering these questions and letting us record.

00:24:21 - That's amazing.

00:24:24 - You're very welcome, Rory.

00:24:26 - So I will give you a call back on WhatsApp, Michael, and we can get a quick chat as well.

00:24:31 - So that's it.

00:24:32 - Okay, sounds good.

00:24:33 - Fantastic, Mike.

00:24:34 - Thank you.

00:24:35 - Thank you.

00:24:36 - Bye-bye.

00:24:36 - Bye-bye.

00:24:37 - R.M.I.

00:24:38 - R.M.I.

00:24:39 - R.M.I.

00:24:40 - R.M.I.

00:24:41 - R.M.I.

00:24:42 - R.M.I.

00:24:43 - R.M.I.

00:24:44 - R.M.I.

00:24:45 - R.M.I.

00:24:46 - R.M.I.

00:24:47 - R.M.I.

00:24:48 - R.M.I.

00:24:49 - R.M.I.

00:24:50 - R.M.I.

00:24:51 - R.M.I.

00:24:52 - R.M.I.

00:24:53 - R.M.I.

00:24:54 - R.M.I.

00:24:55 - R.M.I.

00:24:56 - R.M.I.

00:24:57 - R.M.I.

00:24:58 - R.M.I.

00:24:59 - R.M.I.

00:25:00 - R.M.I.

00:25:01 - R.M.I.

00:25:02 - R.M.I.

00:25:03 - R.M.I.

00:25:04 - R.M.I.