Episode 342： Michael Franzese - Untold Stories of the Mafia
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, Michael Francisi talks about the power plays that were pulled on him growing up in the streets of New York City. He talks about how he dealt with them and how they shaped him into the man he is today.
Transcript
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30 seconds. One time for the underdog. Ignition sequence start.
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Let me see you put them up. Reach the sky, touch the stars up above.
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Cause it's one time for the underdog. One time for the underdog.
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I am Patrick Mede David, your host of Alletainment.
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Today we're going to have another Michael Francisi interview,
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except this one's going to be untold stories of the mafia that he hasn't shared in the past before.
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Good crowd. They've been looking forward to spending some time with you.
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You know, we're talking in the back. I'm like, Michael, what do we talk about that we haven't already talked about?
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How many of you guys have seen the interview, by the way? Anybody seen the interview?
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So why don't we take it in a complete different direction today, you and I.
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One, power plays that maybe were, you know, pulled on you.
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And probably the stories I wouldn't mind if we can get into is maybe early on when you're coming up,
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somebody that was able to do a power play on you, that you were kind of sitting there saying,
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wow, I can't believe that guy actually pulled it off on me.
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That helped you learn to become better yourself on the street.
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And then later on, we can talk about reading people in rooms, in negotiation rooms.
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Many of the guys here sit with investors, competitors, buyers, sellers, vendors, partners.
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But having said that, let's go back to power plays.
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So coming up in the streets of New York, I mean, these are the times of the 80s.
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And in our world, worst thing that can happen to you is go out of business.
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In your world, worst thing that can happen to you is you're out of life.
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So what were some stories or examples you had of power plays played against you and power plays that you played against somebody else that was in a more stronger position than you were?
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You know, that could be a very treacherous life.
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And when I was a young recruit, recruit meaning I had just been proposed into the life and I now had to prove myself to get my stripes.
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So you had to do anything and everything you were told to do.
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I had a market, you know, like a market where you have all different stations.
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You got meat, you got fish, you got the whole thing.
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And Paul Castellano, who was the boss of the Gambino family at the time, he had a lot of people involved in the chicken business.
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So one of his relatives was selling me chickens.
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We had to buy from him because he was the boss.
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So anyhow, I was buying all my chickens from him.
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Now, they were only in my freezer for a day, right?
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And I said, listen, I'm not going to pay you for these chickens because there was something wrong with them.
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He said, no, you're going to pay me for the chickens.
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I start cussing him out and so on and so forth.
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Next thing you know, I get a call from my boss at the time.
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Did you have an argument with somebody on the phone?
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You're not supposed to get out of control with a guy like that.
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He said, we're going to have a sit down with him.
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When we get to that table, you don't open your mouth.
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And you don't answer unless we answer for you or we tell you to answer.
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So we get to the meeting, and I'm getting abused, Pat.
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I know who your father is, but that doesn't give you a right to talk to my nephew like that.
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So the bottom line is, he says, do you want to buy chickens for me anymore?
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I said, no, I don't want to buy chickens from you.
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I mean, you would have thought this was like the biggest deal in the world, right?
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But, you know, in that world, everything is very technical.
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And, you know, the thing, Patrick, at that meeting, what happened at these sit-downs,
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If I call you a liar, I lose the argument automatically.
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If I get upset with you and lose my temper, I lose the argument automatically.
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You've got to know how to keep your mouth shut.
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You've got to be able to outsmart that person, right?
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Because a lot of times, if an old timer was wrong, he's trying to get you into a trap.
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So I said, look, I don't want to buy chickens from you anymore.
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I said, but I'm going to do whatever my boss tells me to do.
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If he tells me to buy them, I'm going to buy them.
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But back and forth, back and forth, I took all the abuse.
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And at the end of the day, I didn't have to pay him for the chickens, but I had to continue buying chickens from him.
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So now I get in the car, and they turn around, and he starts yelling at me for a minute.
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And then all of a sudden, everything is silent.
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There's the boss and my cop regime, and they crack up laughing.
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He said, I've never seen Paulie get so mad over chickens.
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He said, you happen to do that, blah, blah, blah.
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But what I learned at that point, I learned just about these technicalities and how you've got to keep your head in a meeting like that.
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You know, I learned that whenever I went into a meeting like this, I tried to learn the personality, the character of the person I was up against.
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You can never let John Gotti think that you won an argument.
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So you had to figure out a way to outsmart him to make him think he won, but you actually got what you want.
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And when you can master that art, you'll do pretty good.
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And, you know, whatever I did in my old life, I was able to apply that to business in life now.
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But, you know, they got over me a little bit, but we kind of compromised.
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But it was a big lesson for me because that was my first major sit down against a major guy.
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So in my world, I mean, obviously a lot of times you'll be on a board and you're negotiating with somebody and you know somebody in the room isn't telling the truth.
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Or is it a different world than the world you were in?
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Well, in my world, I mean, you can pay serious consequences.
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You can't be disrespectful in that life, Patrick.
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You know, two made guys, two guys that actually took the oath.
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Two made guys could never disrespect one another?
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Calling a guy a name, calling him a liar, raising your voice to him.
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That's a major because the life allegedly is built on respect.
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And he's trying to get involved in the gas business.
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But he was trying to make a deal with Gotti to bring them into the business.
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Because now if he told anybody I called him that, I'd call him a liar.
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But no, in that life, you can never be disrespectful to one another.
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No matter what it is, you had to just bite your tongue and try to outsmart the guy.
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You know, one thing I learned, Patrick, in a meeting, and you know this.
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There's sometimes you could be in a meeting, and you could be the smartest guy in a room,
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There's other times when you're in the room, you could be the least smartest guy in a room.
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But you've got to make them think that you're smarter than them.
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And if you can master that technique, then you can get just about anything you want in any negotiation.
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Is it similar to like a game of poker where you know the guy's tilting, he's frustrated.
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Are you looking for signs to kind of read everybody, or have you done your due diligence before meeting?
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I want to know the personality, the character of the people I'm in with.
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I'll throw out a word or two that I know is false, and I'll see how he responds.
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If he wants to make me think I know what I'm talking about, I'll say something that has nothing to do with anything,
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or it's totally absurd, and we'll see how they answer.
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And sometimes they'll try to, they'll give you an answer, and you can start to, you know,
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they'll indicate to you what kind of personality they are, and really what you have.
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Try to get as much out of them as you possibly can, and then you can kind of figure it out.
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Like with Gotti, a couple of times I had to sit down with him.
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I knew that he could never believe that I was winning.
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So in the midst of the argument, I had to figure out what he really wanted
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and how I can get what I want, letting him think that he got what he wanted.
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I don't know if I'm explaining that right, but, you know, it's all about how you carry yourself.
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So, again, like I'm thinking about for ourselves versus yours.
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Did you, did your world, Michael, did everybody pretty much know everybody's character?
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Like, was it like, hey, Tony, I'm about to go sit with Vinny.
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Or did you already know who Vinny was or who, you know, Johnny was?
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Because maybe in our world, like if we go into a meeting and we don't know somebody, you know, outside of that,
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like if you're saying, you know, you're the smartest, you're not the smartest, you know, make yourself the opposite or whatever you are.
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Was there other methods you used to be able to read people in the room?
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Was there any other thing you did or to look for?
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I got stories for everything that I learned, you know.
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I had a big automobile dealership and I had an office that was on the second floor.
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But one of the guys that worked for me was out one day in the lot and I see him having an argument with somebody.
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Yelling back and forth, argument, argument, argument.
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He wanted his money back and he's going back and forth.
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He says, and then he mentioned that he had a connected uncle, a brother-in-law.
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And I said, Jerry, I told you don't talk like that.
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So I just happened to say, Jerry, I don't feel like driving.
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We had a meet at a place called, it was on 18th Avenue.
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So we go in the back of the Chinese restaurant.
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The guy that I had to meet was another maid guy, but I never met him as a maid guy.
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So if you're a maid member of another family, I can't just go up to you and say, hey, I'm
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We had to have somebody that knew us both introduce us.
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So we go in the back of the room, and there's a big old-time guy, big guy there, and he's
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And Tony says, Michael, Amiga Nostra, meaning a friend of ours, Mario.
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And he says, you got a guy by the name of Jerry Zimmerman with you?
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I said, now I'm putting it together, Mario, the scene.
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So now I'm thinking, I said, okay, Mario, do me a favor.
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If they knew Jerry was out there, and they bring Jerry to sit down, before I could prepare
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him, and he says something wrong, I can't save him.
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Because I'm a made guy, he is a made guy, and we always have the right of way.
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So even if it was somebody under me, if he would have said something wrong, he's in trouble.
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What, what, what can, can you do anything to change that or no?
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Not if he was, if he said the wrong thing, and he was disrespectful in any way, or he answered
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I said, Jerry, Mario's in there, and he's not happy.
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Go up the street to the diner, wait for me, right?
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So he goes up to the street to the diner, and now I'm relaxed.
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And he said, you know, this guy was very disrespectful.
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This is my brother-in-law, and so on and so forth.
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And he says, you know, he said, F me, and all this kind of stuff.
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And I said, Mario, I got to understand, I'm going to lie here.
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I said, Mario, your brother-in-law's not telling you the truth.
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How could you, I know my brother-in-law 20 years.
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You know, and we're going back and forth, and he says, well, I want to kill Jerry Zimmerman.
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I said, well, then I got to kill your brother-in-law.
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I mean, you would have thought it was a nuclear explosion.
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He said, well, I'm going to put him in a hospital.
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I said, well, I got to put your brother-in-law in a hospital.
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We're going to go back and forth with this thing, right?
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I'm telling you, Patrick, this went on for three hours because he was an old timer.
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Now I'm saying, man, this is going to go all the way up to the boss.
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I said, we're going to have a whole production here.
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I'm going to give your brother-in-law a new car.
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I'll give him a new car, and I'll take care of Jerry.
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I go out, and I'm yelling at Jerry and everything.
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I said, you happen to be walking down the street, and a safe falls on your head.
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When I think everything's all right, I'll call you back.
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And you got to understand, Mario resented me because I'm 30 years younger than him.
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I'm a new guy, so he already don't like me for that reason alone.
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So Jerry goes out, and about two months later, he calls me up.
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He says, we're going to be in the movie business.
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So I sent him $83,000, and we produced this movie called Mausoleum, which was a horror
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The end result is a million dollars later, we produced this movie, a horror movie that
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didn't scare anybody but me, I'll be honest with you.
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But that's how I backed into the movie business.
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And then from there, I realized right away, I'll tell you what I said.
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They were two guys, they had a company, and they were doing all of these, you know, kind
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So I take the film, but that's when I realized you had to be in the distribution business.
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So I bought a distribution company at that point.
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And that's how I started to get involved in the film business way back when.
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On an accident, on a mistake, because I didn't pay attention.
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And, you know, I almost got destroyed on that film.
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You know, running a business, a lot of people who run a business here, you wonder whose support,
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who is sales, whose operations, who's this, who's that.
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In your world, you would tell me, you guys got soldiers, you guys got earners, right?
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What is the difference between a personality of a soldier and an earner?
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And did you ever have a situation where a soldier also was a great earner?
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We had about, at that time, we had about 115 made guys, guys that actually took the oath.
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Out of the 115, Patrick, 20 of us were earning.
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The other 95 who had a, you know, a gambling problem, we gave them a union job.
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We tried to do our best to support them, but then they did a lot of the, you know,
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the heavy work, the street work, because, you know, it's like anything else.
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So the guys that are bringing in the money, you try not to jeopardize them.
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And the other guys that are just capitalizing on being part of that life,
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we made them do the work, you know, most of the time.
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Like, was there a trend amongst the 95 soldiers that they were not business savvy,
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they were not communicators, they were not leaders, maybe they were tougher guys,
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Yeah, I mean, you could tell almost immediately, you know,
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you talk to a guy a few minutes, you know if he's got a head for business or not.
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And then, you know, some of those guys, they're just thrilled to be part of the life,
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and they want to do whatever they got, but they don't know how to earn.
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You got to give them a job, you got to support them.
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Look, in that life, we were all Shylocking money.
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You know what Shylocking means, lending it out in your serious rates.
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So what I did with the guys around me that really couldn't earn on their own,
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I would give them money in turn to put out on the street.
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So we'd earn a couple points a week, I'd give it to them,
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and then, you know, that's how you made guys earn back then.
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It was a little easier, you know, because you had that kind of thing going.
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And, you know, back then in the 80s, bank money wasn't easy to come by.
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So we had plenty of customers that wanted money all the time.
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I lent a lot of business people money back then.
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And you were making, what, two and a half to five points?
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Yeah, it would go from two and a half to five points, you know.
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And then sometimes if you, you know, I'll be honest with you,
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if you wanted to take the business over, you know, you give the guy,
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you make it a little harder for him to pay every week.
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You come to me at 12 o'clock, you got the money at two.
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There's no application or nothing, you know, and you go about your business.
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Michael, a lot of the names that we know, you know, the Gotti, your father,
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who's legendary at what he did within that world, and Persico, Paul Castellano,
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all these guys, the names that we've seen all across Hollywood.
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Who were some of the names that were earners that we don't hear the names?
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Like guys who you would say, that guy was legit.
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But it's not commercialized like some of the other names.
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He was, you know, he had a lot of legitimate things going.
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And then if you're a boss, people are sending you money all the time, you know.
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Patrick, when I went into the gas business, I'll tell you how it happened.
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You know, a lot of people have the impression that mob guys sit in their social clubs.
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They sit in their social clubs, and they target businesses.
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They say, we're going to go after this, going to go after that.
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It's somebody within the business that has some kind of scheme to make a little extra money.
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And they'll come to us and present it to us because they figure if they need financing, we can give it to them.
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If they need, you know, some muscle, we can give it to them.
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People that wanted to make a few extra bucks, they'd come to me.
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So, you know, there were really legitimate guys.
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When I found out what I had with the gas business, I went to him and I said, Junior, here's the deal.
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I'm going to show you more money than you ever saw in your life.
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Because we didn't get involved in, we got involved in drugs, we got killed.
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Big fallacy out there that mob was pushing drugs back then.
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Some guys were doing it on a sneak, but as a business, we didn't get involved.
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Everybody's going to want to get involved in this.
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From all five families, they're all going to want to get involved.
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As soon as you open that door, we're going to get in trouble.
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I said, it's going to be the same thing that happens all the time.
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I said, you've got to make me win every argument.
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You make me win every time because I'll be right, and I'm going to show you more money
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At one point in time, after probably six months, I was bringing them in almost $2 million a
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Now, in that life, $2 million a week buys you a lot of loyalty.
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So, you know, does that apply to the real world?
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Look, when people are making money with you, they're happy.
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I mean, money buys a lot of loyalty in business.
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And it's true on the street, and I think it's true in real life, too.
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So, when you make money, your partners, vendors, everybody's happy.
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You continue doing business, and they do additional things for you.
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You had a lot of issues, I mean, within your career, whether it's government or lawyers
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How do you yourself see the court system that we have?
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And outside of the court system, you know, today, like in a marketplace of being an entrepreneur
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or building a business, what do you think are some things business people need to look
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out for that has to do with lawyers, that has to do with the government and regulation?
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But, you know, listen, you know, and I wrote this in my book.
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Look, I made a lot of money illegally, a lot of money.
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You know, I had this gasoline tax fraud case, I mean, deal that at one point in time, we were
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A lot of it, I had to devise a system to send money through wires overseas to various
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We did different things to try to hide the money that we were earning.
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When I finally got in trouble, when the government came on me with these racketeering laws that
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are devastating, you don't ever want to get involved in a RICO, very, very hard to defend,
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and it'll cost you millions of dollars, even if you're innocent.
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And, you know, in all my cases, like Giuliani indicts me on a case, I had a million-dollar
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I spent seven months in a courtroom every single day on trial.
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I was found not guilty, but it cost me $20 million.
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So, at the end of the day, all right, I didn't go to jail, but look at the devastation it
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How many people can handle that, you know, and pay that kind of money?
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Me, I don't like a lawyer unless I absolutely, I hope there's no lawyers in here, no offense
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Unless I absolutely need them, I try to avoid them.
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That's, and I've been through lawyers my whole life.
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But I tell you this, you know, you cut corners legally, that's fine.
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But it absolutely doesn't pay to do anything that's going to bring you heat with the government
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It took me, literally, when I got out of prison, I had a $103 million fine from the IRS.
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My partner in the gas business became an informant, and he started to testify in all
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Every time a witness got on the stand and said, oh, I gave Francis $5 million, I gave Francis
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Next thing I know, I get a letter from the IRS.
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They assessed me that, when the guy was saying it from the witness stand, even if the guy
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got, the case was acquitted, they still assessed me with it.
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And then they used to say, if you want to pay by credit card or whatever.
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So I used to write my credit card and say, here, pay it, right?
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So I get out, I got $103 million fine from the IRS.
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I used to go to try to buy a car, and they said to me, are you kidding me?
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I said, yeah, but let me tell you the flip side of that.
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If I owe the government $103 million, you must know I'm a pretty good earner, so give me the
00:27:14.660
I said, what are you worried about the credit report?
00:27:21.540
Same way I bought a house that way one time at the bank.
00:27:26.200
And when you're on the street, you learn some of that dialogue.
00:27:28.380
But anyway, so every year I'm going to court in Brooklyn on this $103 million.
00:27:35.280
I said, look, if you claim there's money someplace, go and get it.
00:27:38.360
They wrote a book that I got money buried all over the world, and they're investigating
00:27:53.020
I said, you're not solving anything for me here.
00:27:57.380
So I told the judge, you know, I live in California.
00:27:59.880
I said, why are you just making me come here all the time?
00:28:13.220
About three months later, I get a call from the agent.
00:28:21.140
He's got about 20 file boxes in the back of you.
00:28:26.020
I said, well, didn't people tell you what this is?
00:28:29.280
He says, all they do is send me boxes and say you owe 103 million.
00:28:32.920
I said, I've been fighting the case for 20 years.
00:28:35.080
We're going to fight it for another 20 years unless you make a deal and settle with me now.
00:29:03.020
I said, you got to stretch this out over five years.
00:29:11.440
So I said, unless you want to keep investigating.
00:29:20.260
We got a couple of construction company guys here that are very good at shoveling and digging for money.
00:29:26.940
Are there any hidden spots you want to advise them going digging for some money?
00:29:34.320
The statute of limitations is over on any money that I might have stolen back in the 80s, right?
00:29:42.100
They make you sign a statement under the penalty of perjury that you have no money in farm banks.
00:29:49.540
Like, you got no money in your bathroom, in your closet, in your shoebox.
00:29:54.160
And there's a 10-year statute of limitations on the perjury.
00:30:00.820
So I was talking to a few people today at lunch.
00:30:04.700
And the last statement I signed, I have 19 months to go before I have to sign another one.
00:30:13.160
I said, look, if I refuse to sign another one, what are they going to do?
00:30:16.880
He said, well, probably when you have a year left, they're going to tell you to come in and sign another one.
00:30:22.100
And I said, well, if I say no, what are they going to do?
00:30:27.600
I said, because if we get a lapse of time and there is any money there, and I'm not saying there is, but just in case there is, you know, I don't know who's in this audience, but just in case there is.
00:30:42.620
Maybe that lapse of time, I can go grab a few bucks if there's anything there until I sign another one.
00:30:51.160
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00:30:58.780
And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube.
00:31:06.580
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