Former Mafia Boss: "I Was Running The Biggest Scam In The World! $1.4 Million A Day!" - Michael Franzese

He was made an offer he couldn't refuse. From medical student to the most profitable mobster since Al Capone, this is the real story of the hidden mafia life. Michael Franzese is an American former mafia member who served as a caporegime in the Colombo crime family. He is the best-selling author of books such as, ‘Blood Covenant’ and ‘I'll Make You an Offer You Can't Refuse: Insider Business Tips from a Former Mob Boss’. In this conversation, Michael and Steven discuss topics such as, how Michael ran the world’s biggest scam, how his father got him into the mafia, the reason Michael left a life of crime, and his experience of 21 months and 7 days in solitary confinement. (00:00) Intro (01:25) Who is Michael Franzese? (03:27) Inside a Mafia Family (05:32) My Dad Was A Mafia UnderBoss (09:35) How the Mafia Family is Structured (10:10) The History of the Colombo Family (16:33) Mafia Family Wars (17:50) What Happens at a Mafia Sitdown? (19:51) How the Mafia Decides Who Lives and Who Dies (20:20) Franzese’s Dad In Prison (22:30) Joining the Mafia: How Michael Franzese Became a Made Man (29:34) My Dad Was Involved in 35 Murders (32:56) How Does The Mafia Kill People? (35:15) Is There Mafia Training? What It Takes to Join (38:49) Choosing The Mafia Over My Loved Ones (39:56) The Mafia’s Manipulation Tactics (42:15) Business Lessons from the Mafia (43:58) How I Made Millions with the Gas Station Scam (51:02) Swearing the Mafia Oath (52:43) Why I Joined the Mafia (54:18) Mafia Members: Killers vs Rule Followers (56:52) Do We All Have the Instinct to Kill? (58:51) How Seeing a Dead Body Changed My Life Forever (01:04:20) “He Had To Kill His Father” (01:08:31) The Moment My Dad Betrayed Me (01:13:25) Was All the Money Illegal? (01:14:33) How Mafia Life Helped My Business Success (01:15:56) When Does Everything Come Crashing Down? (01:20:51) How Easy Is It to Order a Murder in the Mafia (01:22:53) Money Rules in the Mafia (01:28:24) How the FBI Tracked My Bank Accounts (01:29:31) Where I Hid My Mafia Money (01:32:48) What It’s Really Like Behind Bars (01:34:55) “I Was Kept in Solitary Confinement” (01:37:24) How I Survived Solitary Confinement Without Losing My Mind (01:41:46) How Power Is Maintained in the Mob (01:43:36) My Dad Didn’t Stand Up for Me (01:48:10) Reconnecting with My Father After Betrayal (01:51:42) The Mafia Stories I Can’t Tell (01:53:31) What I Struggle with (01:54:51) What Do People Want To Know About You? (01:58:24) Micromanaging (02:02:08) The Last Guest Question (02:04:30) Michael Franzese’s Closing Message to the Audience Follow Michael: YouTube - https://g2ul0.app.link/iOcSgJkX4Lb Twitter - https://g2ul0.app.link/dXbcRafX4Lb Instagram - https://g2ul0.app.link/pRuoUtiX4Lb Website - https://g2ul0.app.link/toKs7zS9cMb You can buy Michael’s book, ‘I'll Make You an Offer You Can't Refuse’, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/JDOamnFm5Lb You can learn more about Franzese Wines, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/HaBZW6W9cMb Watch the episodes on Youtube - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACEpisodes My new book! 'The 33 Laws Of Business & Life' is out now - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACBook You can purchase the The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards: Second Edition, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  In your time in the mafia, what did you witness? I'm gonna be honest with you. We're bringing in nine, ten million dollars a week. I was arrested eighteen times. And I saw guys that died for the wrong reasons. But I'll tell you one thing, Steve. You're not gonna wanna hear this. But it's the truth.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  Michael Franzese, one of the highest earning mafia members turned motivational speaker, who is sharing the ruthless lessons he learned about business, leadership, and resilience.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  So there's two levels in that life. You're either a racketeer, or you're a gangster. And I was a racketeer. Meaning, I was elevating the family by making their money. I had eighteen companies, defrauding the government out of tax, bringing in ten million dollars a week. I was living the lifestyle, had a jet plane, had a helicopter. What was the most cash you ever saw? Forty, fifty million. In cash? In cash. Now, you can learn so much from the mafia. You know, I'll give you an example. The art of negotiation. This is a tremendous technique, to get what you want. And I always wanted. So here's what you have to do. Now, you may be making all this money. But we have rules. And you don't violate the rules because the consequences are severe. There was a guy that had to kill his father. And then a very dear friend of mine, he did something that was total violation of our life. And he ended up getting killed.

• 1:07Speaker 00

  But the one thing that really hurt me bad, my dad had a powerful position in the mafia. And he betrayed me. That was rough. Steve, the thing is, I've done a lot of bad things in my life. But it's not the path that I wanted to take. I realized, you know, I gotta get away from this. Like, you don't walk away from this life. You're not allowed to do that. When does it all come crashing down for you?

• 1:35Steven Bartlett?

  Michael.

• 1:37Steven Bartlett?

  Who were you?

• 1:40Speaker 00

  Who was I?

• 1:43Speaker 00

  Interesting question. I, um...

• 1:47Speaker 00

  You know, I have to start with this because you just came right off the bat and asked me a question that...

• 1:54Speaker 00

  I don't want to say stumped me, but maybe in a way did, in the same way that Jordan Peterson did. I'll tell you why. Jordan said to me, he said, Michael, you spent twenty years in that life, obviously you did some things that were not good. I said, yeah. He, well, how'd you do that? And I said, you know, Jordan, when I had to do something that I was uncomfortable with, I kind of stepped out of myself, I believe, took care of business, and then stepped back in. So he looked at me and he said, well, how do you know who the real Michael is? The guy that stepped out or the guy that's sitting here in front of me now? I said, well, that's a good question, Jordan. I said, but uh, I've been this guy for the last

• 2:40Speaker 00

  almost thirty years, so hopefully this is the guy. So, you know, who am I? I mean, I'm a guy that, uh,

• 2:50Speaker 00

  you know, at a point in time in my life, I was, I was on the right track. Loved my dad very much, and as a result of that, I followed him into this life to try to help him out. He had a fifty year prison sentence. And I thought the only way to help him, and he thought the same, was to really get on the street and do some of the work that was necessary to try to overturn a conviction that he got. Wrongful conviction, by the way. So I became that other guy that was able to, I was gonna be a doctor. I was my, I was a pre-med student when my dad got this fifty year sentence. So, um, but then I just, I mean, I fell into that life and I, I thought I did a pretty good job while I was there, and I acclimated to it pretty, pretty, you know, easily.

• 3:36Steven Bartlett?

  When someone thinks about you joining the mafia, they assume that your home life must have been a certain way. You must have had a really, really rough up, early upbringing. Is that the case?

• 3:47Speaker 00

  You know, um, I had a very strict mother. I mean, she was sixteen when I was born. And we had a very turbulent life because of my father's involvement in that life. My father was an extremely high-profile guy at that time. Major target of law enforcement. So from the time I was four or five years old, my dad was in and out of jail, going on trial. And we allowed a lot of turbulence. Police around us all the time. So I witnessed all that, was part of that. I don't know if that contributed to...

• 4:22Speaker 00

  You know who I am now? I I don't know. I mean.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  But it certainly, I mean, it had an effect on me at that point in time. And I hated the police. I hated the government. I hated anything about law enforcement because I saw them as the enemy. The way they, you know, harassing my dad, harassing my family, at least in my view at that point. So it did shape, you know, my my worldview of those people at that time.

• 4:47Steven Bartlett?

  And they were parked outside your house, I read.

• 4:49Speaker 00

  They, uh, we had six or seven different agencies parked around our house. And every time we left, there was a parade of law enforcement vehicles following us. I mean, it was that severe with my dad. Uh, I I've never seen anything like that, quite honestly. You know, other people have had surveillance, but I guess because I grew up and I witnessed, I was part of it. But it was so intense with him. It really was.

• 5:12Steven Bartlett?

  Did you know why they were there? And did you know what your dad was doing?

• 5:15Speaker 00

  You know, it was hard not to, although he never sat down with me and said to me, this is what I'm all about. It was ba- basically from other people, from what I read and what I witnessed. Um, so, yeah, I mean, I knew what he was about, but I thought it was a good thing. You know, because, you know, his, his, his friends came to the house. To me, they were like Uncle Joe, Uncle this, Uncle that, good people, you know, we'd go out together. So I thought it was a good thing at that time.

• 5:41Steven Bartlett?

  What was he about?

• 5:43Speaker 00

  My dad?

• 5:43Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 5:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, very charismatic guy, you know, a good father. I mean, he wanted the best for me. He didn't want me in this life originally, wanting me to go to school, be a doctor, get an education, stay off the street. That was his initial desire for me. Um, he was a good husband to my mother, I thought, at that time. But, you know, he had that other side of him. That once or twice, growing up, I kind of witnessed and I saw there was something else, you know, with him.

• 6:14Steven Bartlett?

  What did you witness?

• 6:16Speaker 00

  You know, I'll never forget, uh, it was really two things that, that happened. I was, he was taking me up. My, my dad was involved in the music business. So he was taking me into Manhattan to meet with some of the people, you know, just his daily work. And along the way, he had to stop and he had to meet with somebody. And I was in the car and two of his guys that I knew very well with, with my dad. And they were talking to this guy and the conversation got very heated. And I see my dad really angry, never saw him like that before. And, uh, Steve, I'm, I'm not kidding. At least this was a kid's impression. I was young. He just picked that guy up by like his throat and had him up against the wall. And I saw the guy was horror stricken. I, I didn't, you know, I never saw my dad like that before.

• 6:58Speaker 00

  Cause he didn't, he didn't hit us or anything as kids, you know, I had brothers and sisters. He didn't treat us that. My mom was tough. My mom, forget it, she didn't spare the rob, but my, my dad was not. So to see him like that, I said, wow, there is really another side of him. You know, a street side of him.

• 7:14Steven Bartlett?

  You said there was another experience?

• 7:16Speaker 00

  Another experience, this was, it was kind of funny, but in a way it wasn't. We had a carpenter that was working in our house and he was kind of a, his name was Sal. I'll never forget a big guy, huge guy. And, uh, he would never finish anything on time, the carpentry. My dad would hire him because you probably didn't have to pay him much, right? And my mom was always on him, you know, a guy that comes, you don't finish the job and all of that. And came to the house once and my dad just, just went off on him, punched him like in the house and knocked the guy out, you know, in front of all of us. We were kind of surprised, but he said, don't blame me. Your mother's nagging me too much. I can't take it, you know? It was one of those things. So those, as a young person, those were the two things that I really witnessed with him.

• 7:59Steven Bartlett?

  Those were clues. Those were clues of something else. Those were a window into his other life?

• 8:06Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 8:07Steven Bartlett?

  And what was his other life? What was the reality of his other life as you've come to understand it?

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Well, another thing in this, this, it's amazing how you can remember things sometimes at a young age, but you can't really put it together. I, I have to go back. The first real incident that I had is, um, I was probably four years old. And we were living in Brooklyn, but my dad had moved us out, me and my mom, to Long Island, where my grandparents were. We were living in their house for a while. And I didn't see my dad for a couple of days. He was gone. And then one morning, he comes in, and my dad had a heavy beard. He hadn't shaved. And his right-hand man was just standing out on the porch, kind of standing guard. And my dad came in, hugged my mother. My mother was a little upset. She was crying. Then he came over and hugged me. I was sitting on the step of my grandmother's house.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  I'm saying, what is this all about? He was there for about a half an hour, and then he left. Well, what I didn't find out until later on, our family, the Colombo family, was at war at that point. And so my dad was not at home. It's kind of dangerous to be at home. And, you know, it lasted for a while. And I didn't know what that meant at that time. You know, you look back and you put these things together later on. So really, I would say it was those three incidents. But look, my dad was a, you know, he was a captain in that life, and then an underboss in that life. So he had a very high position, powerful position. A lot of people around him, a lot of guys who were subordinate to him. And, you know, he was big time in that life.

• 9:40Steven Bartlett?

  He was a captain and an underboss?

• 9:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:43Steven Bartlett?

  I have been trying to understand the structure of a mafia family.

• 9:48Steven Bartlett?

  So I printed off this to try and understand it from what I can see. And I'll put this on the screen for anyone that's interested and pin it below. Is that somewhat accurate? In terms of the structure of a mafia family?

• 10:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, that's it.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  These are, this is the true rankings. And that's the, I mean, there's a boss and an underboss, and the consigliere is kind of an advisor to the boss. And then you have the capo regimes is the real term for it, or capos. And they are, they're kind of the street bosses. They're an elevated position. And then you have the soldiers, which is the first official rank. When you get made, the term is made, the night that you take the oath and you become an official member of that life, your rank is a soldier. And and the associates are guys that are around us but never taken the oath. They're not full-fledged members, they're just associates.

• 10:45Steven Bartlett?

  So from the bottom up, the bottom level is the associates. I'm going to repeat this back to you to make sure I've got it. And they're not, they haven't taken the oath, so they've not become what you call made men.

• 10:55Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 10:55Steven Bartlett?

  The soldiers are the first level that have taken the oath.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 10:59Steven Bartlett?

  And they report into capos.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:03Steven Bartlett?

  And the capos report into the underboss.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  Capos can go right to the boss also.

• 11:07Steven Bartlett?

  Okay. And then there's the boss above the underboss.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  Yes, he's the boss, he's the official ruler of the family.

• 11:15Steven Bartlett?

  And your dad became an underboss.

• 11:18Speaker 00

  Underboss, yes.

• 11:19Steven Bartlett?

  So he was one below the boss.

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:21Steven Bartlett?

  And you mentioned your family had a certain name, what was that name?

• 11:24Speaker 00

  Columbo.

• 11:25Steven Bartlett?

  Columbo.

• 11:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:26Steven Bartlett?

  What is the, because I think I need to understand the kind of history of the mafia to understand what Columbo is.

• 11:32Speaker 00

  Yes. Well, you know, originated in Italy, obviously, Sicily. And it was originally just a group in Italy that band together to protect their towns from marauders that were coming in and, you know, doing damage in the towns and the cities. And eventually, for some reason, they started becoming a little bit of a criminal, you know, body. And then they migrated, many of them, to New York. You know, back in nineteen oh one, nineteen oh, I think the earliest, in the late nineteen, I think it was maybe in eighteen eighty-five or something like that was when they first started coming here to the United States. Came legally, went to Ellis Island and came in legally.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  And originally, the guys that came in, they were just kind of preying on their own people and in the cities that, you know, they they got into. And, you know, I can go through all of this, but you go back to the days of Al Capone. I'm sure you know, you've heard that name, who originally came from Brooklyn, then went out to Chicago. And I always say this, they were obviously involved in criminal activity, you know, loan shocking, lending money at usurious rates, extorting some of the shop owners, you know, for protection, getting money out of them, a little bit of the gambling business. But what really happened, I always say this, it was the government, the United States government,

• 12:58Speaker 00

  that made the mafia strong in the United States. And when did they do that? With prohibition. Because it was then that the guy, the guys realized, hey, people want this. They want a drink. The government is, you know, banning it, but we're going to allow them to have, to have it. And so they started to create, they got into the illegal booze business, basically. And to give you the extent of that, in New York State alone, there were thirty six thousand speakeasies, which were illegal bars at the time, thirty six thousand in New York alone. And the mafia controlled all of them. And people wanted it and they gave it to them. And it was extremely lucrative.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  I mean, you're talking, you know, in today's money, billions of dollars. And that's what started to create this organization. And then in the forties, Lucky Luciano, who again came from, from Italy, saw that a lot of the guys were starting to war among each other. There was always power and control and money. And he said, we're not going to exist. We're not going to survive like this. We have to become an organization, a business. And he's the one that created the Mafia Commission and split it up into families. Actually, at that time, there were nine families nationwide. And there were bosses of each family. And that's how this whole structure came about. It was in the forties.

• 14:23Speaker 00

  It was actually him, Meyer Lansky, who played a significant role, even though Meyer Lansky was not a made guy because he was Jewish and you have to be of Italian descent. But he was a right-hand man to Lucky Luciano. And that's when the mafia really came to be here in the United States.

• 14:41Steven Bartlett?

  So the mafia was this one organization and then Lucky Luciano, did you say?

• 14:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 14:46Steven Bartlett?

  He split it into lots of families?

• 14:48Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 14:49Steven Bartlett?

  Were those families actually related by blood in any way?

• 14:53Speaker 00

  No.

• 14:53Steven Bartlett?

  Was it just, when you say split it into families, was he, did he essentially just appoint lots of CEOs to run different parts of the same organization?

• 15:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was called a family. I mean, you could have called it a group or a, whatever you wanted to call it, but we called it families. And no, they weren't necessarily related. And somebody emerged in that group as the top guy and he officially appointed them as the boss.

• 15:18Speaker 00

  And in order to have a seat on the commission, which was the ruling body of all of these families nationwide, you had to be the boss or representative of your family that the boss designated. And you can then sit on the commission and the commission allegedly created policy for all of the families nationwide. And that's how it worked.

• 15:39Steven Bartlett?

  Allegedly.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  Allegedly because, you know, I I got to understand that the commission was like the United Nations. Sounds good, you know, and they they're gonna create policy, but really you can't tell a boss of his own family what to do. He has total autonomy. So it sounded good and sometimes the commission will make a policy that people will respect. But if the boss of that family doesn't want to, they don't have to.

• 16:04Steven Bartlett?

  And how big were the families?

• 16:07Speaker 00

  In New York, we had five families and in each of the a total total made guys in those families was about seven hundred and fifty guys. You know, the Gambino family had about two hundred and fifty guys, and this is through my era. Genovese family, two hundred and fifty guys. Bonanno family, Colombo family, Lucchese's, we had about a hundred and some odd each. We were the smaller families. Uh, but you had total about seven hundred and fifty made men, guys that actually took the oath. And then we had a lot of associates, you know, hundreds. So we had a, we had a big presence, especially in New York.

• 16:43Steven Bartlett?

  And did the families fight each other even in New York? Were there arguments amongst families?

• 16:47Speaker 00

  Prior to the forties, yes. When the commission was created, yes, they would go to war among each other. Once that commission was created, there was no wars among the families. Anytime there was a war, it was a civil war and it was always a war for power. Our family, the Colombo family, we were one of the more violent warring families. We had three wars during my lifetime in the Columbos and it was always for power. Who wanted to be the boss? You don't have elections. Somebody wants to take over, it's a power struggle and however it turns out, it turns out.

• 17:20Steven Bartlett?

  Within the family?

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Within the family. Now, other families could say, okay, we throw our support behind you, but not with manpower. It's, you know, whoever you're rooting for at that point, but um, no, things were solved. You know, once the commission came into place in the family, things were solved amicably, usually, you know, peacefully. But there was always a lot of disagreements. There was a lot of sit downs, you know, to straighten things out. We had a lot of that. You know, I was very active in that life and I was gonna sit down every other day, you know, trying to resolve something. Either one of my crazy guys got in trouble or it was a business situation. Uh, it was a lot of that.

• 17:59Steven Bartlett?

  What is a sit down? I was reading about this uh in your work and I I found it quite interesting because I think sometimes in business as a CEO, maybe we should emulate this idea of having a sit down. We have a lot of meetings and a lot of emails and stuff like that, but it seems like you have a pure way of dealing with things.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  We do. A sit down was the way we resolved everything, everything. We sat down, they were structured. When I say structured, you had, normally the boss was in control of that. If it was a serious one, rather than two captains or couples getting together, you had to bring the boss in. Uh, he was the final rule. What he says goes, like it or not. And there was rules. If you're a made guy and I'm a made guy and we're arguing over a business uh issue and you're lying through your teeth, I can't call you a liar. If I call you a liar, I lose the argument automatically because I disrespected you. You have to be respectful in meetings. So if a guy's lying, you gotta figure out how to let the boss understand that without calling him a liar.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  And then at the end of this, um, you know, you uh, whatever decision the boss makes, that's it. There's no appeals, there's no nothing, shake hands, get up and you leave. And that's the final ruling. So you mentioned this, I wrote a book, uh, it was actually a business book, I'll make you an offer you can't refuse. Harper Collins was the publisher. After they heard about that, they said, we're not having any more meetings. From now on, they're all sit downs. He said, that's it, you know, because it was a lot more efficient.

• 19:27Steven Bartlett?

  What kind of things would get resolved in a in a sit down?

• 19:30Speaker 00

  Normally business disputes, um, and then sometimes quite honestly, you know, you know, look, that's a a life with serious consequences. And if somebody violated policy, made a mistake to the point where he was gonna pay for it seriously, you had to sit down to decide his fate, basically. You had people speaking for him, people speaking against him, and then the boss would make the final ruling. So that could be, you know, a serious sit down, could be a business matter.

• 20:01Steven Bartlett?

  So if in the case of deciding someone's fate, would the person you were deciding their fate, be, would they be sat there?

• 20:08Speaker 00

  No.

• 20:09Steven Bartlett?

  So it'd be someone on, basically speaking.

• 20:12Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 20:13Steven Bartlett?

  On behalf of one side of that decision.

• 20:15Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 20:16Steven Bartlett?

  Things like whether this person should live.

• 20:18Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 20:20Steven Bartlett?

  Have you have you ever been in a sit down where people were discussing if someone should live? And you've seen it go both ways?

• 20:25Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 20:28Steven Bartlett?

  Your father got sent to prison when you were nineteen?

• 20:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, he finally, he was in and out before that, but he started to do uh time on that fifty year prison sentence. I was nineteen.

• 20:42Steven Bartlett?

  How did that change your life?

• 20:45Steven Bartlett?

  Cause you, through everything I read, you really loved this man.

• 20:50Speaker 00

  I loved him. He's a good dad and he he wanted the best for me at that point and he taught me great things. I mean, he he really did and you know, the one advantage I had in my life, and again, taught to me by my dad, he always said, son, be a good listener. Listen before you speak, you know, be careful, don't, you know, don't, don't speak out of turn. He always told me to be a good listener, so the person I listened to the most was him. And he taught me well in that regard. So I had a lot of love and respect for my dad and um when he went away was devastating because he was fifty years old when he went into prison. Figure you have fifty on top of that, he'd never come out of prison alive. That's what we thought. You know, so it was, it was uh, it was tough.

• 21:35Steven Bartlett?

  I can almost still see the emotion in you when you talk about him going away to prison.

• 21:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  It was a defining moment in my life because, you know, I I realized things were going to dramatically change. I mean, I was the oldest with my mom, had three younger brothers and sisters. And um, I knew I had to play a role in that, you know, and and taking care of my mom because my dad, when he went away, he said, listen, I'm entrusting the family to you. He said, you know, be a good son and take care of your brothers and sisters, take care of your mother. So I mean, I had that responsibility.

• 22:12Speaker 00

  And I was doing that anyway because during many of my dad's trials, my mom would go and I would, one time he was, you know, tried a couple of hundred miles away from us. They moved the venue to Albany, New York, and I'm in Long Island. So my mom would be away for three or four days at a time with my dad. I'd be watching the kids and so I mean, I took on that role early on, but then when he went away, it became a lot more, you know, um, serious.

• 22:40Steven Bartlett?

  Your life when he went away, you were studying to.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  Be a doctor.

• 22:44Steven Bartlett?

  Be a doctor.

• 22:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:46Steven Bartlett?

  It's hard to imagine the sort of turn of turn of events that happened in your life at that point. When you're studying to be a doctor, your dad goes to prison and it ends up changing the trajectory of your life. It ends up swaying you towards the life he had just come from. And you say that he was wrongly imprisoned.

• 23:03Speaker 00

  My dad was framed on that case.

• 23:05Steven Bartlett?

  Framed?

• 23:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, hundred percent. I'll take it to my grave, Steve. He was, uh, he was supposedly masterminding a nationwide string of bank robberies. And, um, you know, when my, my dad first went away, I, I, I was with him in the visiting room. We were in, in the jail and I looked at him, I said, Dad, bank robbery? And he looked at me and he said, Son, I'm innocent. I'm not a bank robber. I didn't order these bank robberies. He says, I was framed. Government framed me. My dad had never lied to me to that point. And he said, We got to work to overturn this conviction. And why did I believe, first of all, he never lied to me, so I believed it. But the four witnesses that testified against him were all drug addicts.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  My dad, my entire life preached against drugs to me. He used to make up stories, parables to, to show me the dangers of drugs, all of us, all the kids. So that we would never get involved. He hated anything to do with drugs, always spoke about it. So I, I never saw my dad as a hypocrite in that regard. He wouldn't associate with these people, no less do bank robberies with them. So it made it very real. And so it angered me in some ways, but it motivated me to say, you know what? I can't let my dad die in here, you know? And then at the same time, I was getting very close to Joe Colombo, who was the boss of our family, Colombo family. And he kind of took me under his wing because, you know, he, uh, obviously my dad was his underboss.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  And I started to meet a lot more of my dad's friends and they would say to me, "Mike, what are you doing going to school? If you don't help your father out, he's gonna die in prison." So I was very, it affected me in a big way. I said, "I can't let that happen." And even though my dad did not want me involved in the life, but I went to visit him in the visiting room in Leavenworth Penitentiary. And I said, "Dad, I'm not going to school anymore. If I don't help you out, you're gonna die in here." And we kinda argued about it, cuz he, he was disappointed. He didn't want that for me. He knew the life was tough. He didn't want it for me. He wanted for any of those kids. And, uh, but I was pretty headstrong as a kid. And I said, "Dad, my mind is made up. I lost interest in school. I'm not gonna go." I said, "It's, it, you're wasting your breath."

• 25:17Speaker 00

  And basically, he looked at me, Steve, and you know, and, and I, I don't ever wanna be offensive to the audience, but he looked at me and he said, "Okay, but if you're gonna be on the street, then I want you on the street the right way." In his mind, the right way was to become a member of his life. So he looked at me and he said, "I gotta ask you a question, very serious." I said, "Go ahead." He said, "If you ever had to kill anybody, could you do it?" And I said, "Dad, under the right circumstances, yeah, I could do it." He said, "That's the right answer." He said to me, then he looked at me and he said, "Go home. Somebody's gonna be in touch with you. Do what you're told." That's all he said. He didn't break it down. He didn't said, "This is what's required of you," nothing. Cuz you know, Steve, that's a secret life. You're not supposed to talk about that life with anybody outside of it.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  My dad wouldn't violate that policy, even with me, his own son. He just figured, "Okay, kid's got it in him. Go home and do what you're told." And I didn't question him. I said, "Okay, Dad, this is what you want. Just point me in the right direction." I mean, that's the kinda bond that we had together at that point. And, uh, and I left there and that's how things started for me.

• 26:20Steven Bartlett?

  When you answered that question your dad asked you, were you telling the truth?

• 26:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, obviously, I'd never been in that situation, but I thought about it and I don't, I don't remember what rolled through my mind at that point. Did I say to myself, "Well, this is the answer my dad wants?" Or did I say to myself, "Yeah, I could really do it?" As I sit here now, all these years later, I can't honestly answer that. Um, but the answer was yes.

• 26:49Steven Bartlett?

  He didn't um, he didn't ever try and stop you? Or did he? Did he ever try and persuade you out of joining the mafia?

• 26:58Speaker 00

  No. I mean, prior to that point, that's not what he wanted for me. But once I made up my mind, I think there was a feeling of pride or joy in my dad. I kind of seen it in him. And that, you know, once I did become a made guy, he was, he was overjoyed. He was thrilled.

• 27:16Steven Bartlett?

  How did he or anyone else think that you joining the mafia would help him?

• 27:21Speaker 00

  Simple. Needed money for attorneys. I had kind of a business head. My dad knew that. We needed to track down witnesses and people that were involved in the case that could, you know, say this was a frame up. And that's exactly what I did. I mean, I went after all of these witnesses to try to find them and get them to recant their testimony. I worked with the lawyers as a result of that. And eventually did get, you know, three of the witnesses to recant their testimony. Gave them lie detector tests, proved they lied at the trial, that the FBI had gone along with the story that they met up because my father was such a, they wanted him so bad. They really did. And if you go back to the sixties and you look at the amount of media attention he had,

• 28:03Speaker 00

  you know, you wouldn't believe it, but um, so the FBI at that time, I believe was complicit in, in this frame up. Because they might have known that these guys were lying. One of the, one of the witnesses told me that when they agreed to cooperate with the government, they were going to put these bank robberies or to make the mastermind somebody else. And they actually did. Guy by the name of Tony Polisi. They said, well, he was the original guy that told us how to do these bank robberies. And then when the FBI told them, this came right from the witness, the FBI told them, well, that'll get you some time off, but I ain't gonna go that far. We don't care about Tony Polisi. A guy like Sonny Franzese, that would matter.

• 28:45Speaker 00

  And then they went and they concocted this story because, Steve, the thing is, they committed all the bank robberies. Every one of them. And they, they described it in great detail at the trial. And all they said was that Sonny Franzese ordered them at a meeting that we had once at the Q Motor Inn. And why did they pick the night for the meeting? Because my dad was under constant surveillance. And the FBI told them what day my dad would be available to. They wouldn't have an alibi. He was probably sitting at home. Wouldn't have an alibi to say that he wasn't at that meeting. So they structured this whole thing. And many people afterwards have said Sonny would never associate with these type of guys.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  So, you know, all those things came together and I really, like I said, look, I went to crime, I went to jail for a crime I was guilty of. pled guilty, did my time. Uh, but this particular crime that my dad did, I'd take it to my grave. He, he was not, he was no bank robber.

• 29:43Steven Bartlett?

  Was your dad a good guy?

• 29:46Speaker 00

  I thought so. I mean, yeah, listen, people liked him. My dad was very well liked.

• 29:51Steven Bartlett?

  Objectively, as you sit here today, do you think he was a net positive?

• 29:55Speaker 00

  Listen, my dad, look, I, I'm going to tell you this, you know, the, the word on the street from the FBI, my dad was involved in thirty, thirty-five murders. Now, he never admitted that to me about anyone in particular. He was indicted for one murder and he was acquitted in that case, found not guilty. But my dad was, he was a tough guy. There's no question, so.

• 30:18Steven Bartlett?

  If he was involved in thirty-five murders, as the FBI suggests, do you think he was better off behind bars? What I'm getting at here really is if they framed him, was it a net benefit to society that they framed him?

• 30:33Speaker 00

  Well, you know, Steve, let me, let me, I, I know this is going to be a tough one, but let me, let me tell you how I think. The, the, the right and just side of me, the legally just side of me, says that the government is never allowed to break the law, to uphold the law. Because if you allow that to happen, then it falls into monarchy and people are not protected. Because if they do it against Sonny Fransies, they can do it against anybody. So I believe strictly, the government has enough tools and weapons to get people the right way. Uh, and they do ninety-six, ninety-seven percent of the time. They shouldn't be allowed to violate the law, to go after a criminal. That's my, my feeling on it. Now.

• 31:18Speaker 00

  Another thing is this. People think when we take an oath, the oath of omerta, it's an oath to stay silent. It's not an oath to lie, steal, cheat, and kill. Does that happen as part of that life? Yes. But we're told straight out. Now, try to understand the thinking here. You come into that life, you're told straight out. We have rules. You don't ever violate another man's wife, daughter, sister, girl, never. That'll cause you to die. During my era, we weren't allowed to deal with drugs. You deal with drugs, you get caught, you die. You maybe do some other things, you're not honest with people, you disrespect somebody, you hit another maid guy, you die. Now, we understand that, and they tell you.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  Your best friend may be the one that pulls the trigger because the life comes before anything. That's it. You don't violate the rules. That's how we maintain control in this life. That's how we existed for a hundred years, and that's how it's gonna stay. So now you're saying, okay, we all agreed to this, we all admitted it. If one of us decides to violate the policy of the law and we get caught, well, we understand the consequences. So that's how I looked at it, and that's how I justified it. Now, does that say you can go out and start to do random killings? No. If the boss tells you to go kill somebody because you doesn't like them and you do it, that's not right.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  But if we kill our own, and you know, you hear a lot of times, well, we only kill our own. Well, we don't only kill our own. But if we only kill our own, knowing that we made that choice, well then, okay. I kinda, I kinda get it in a way. Even though murder is murder, and it's a crime, and it's sinful, and I understand that. But that's how you justify it.

• 33:05Steven Bartlett?

  But it wasn't the case that you only killed your own?

• 33:08Speaker 00

  Well, for some of us it was, and for others it was not. And I've seen both sides of that.

• 33:14Steven Bartlett?

  You've never talked about

• 33:17Steven Bartlett?

  having to kill someone, have you?

• 33:19Speaker 00

  No.

• 33:20Steven Bartlett?

  Why is that?

• 33:22Speaker 00

  It's, it's a it's just not a subject I care to get into, you know? I, uh, listen.

• 33:32Speaker 00

  I like to be as honest as I possibly can because I am a Christian and you don't want to lie to people. But it's not something I want to talk about.

• 33:42Steven Bartlett?

  I was wondering, because when I, when I read that, I thought maybe it's because, you know, there's some, might be legal retribution, maybe it's because, you know, it's not nice for people to hear about, maybe it's because there's still some kind of like rule where you can't say anything. But I wondered why, maybe it's all of the above, I don't know.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  Well, you know, Steve, look, there's guys, there's a lot of guys on the street now, and if you go on YouTube, you'll see a number of them, and they've admitted to murders that they were involved in, these are made guys, and they've admitted to it, and many of them had struck a deal with the government, they had immunity for the crimes they committed, even murder. I mean, the government give you immunity for murder if you want to, if they want you to cooperate and help them out. It's amazing, but they'll do it. And so they have immunity, they could talk about their crimes. I didn't cooperate to that level at all. I don't have immunity for anything that I've done in the past, you know? And listen, you know, our laws here in the United States, if you were standing next to somebody when they murdered somebody else, you're there, you could, you could be charged for murder the same way to them.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  So, you know, I'm a saint, I ever was in that position, I'm just saying, that's the law. So, you know, why talk about it? Number one, and number two, murder is ugly. You know, it's, it's ugly. And you don't ever want to talk about it. I mean, I don't, if I were to do something like that, I wouldn't be proud of it. I'm not trying to throw my chest out and say, hey, look what I could do. Guys go to war, they kill people all the time, you know, in defense of our country or defense of, so, I mean, it's not like, oh, God, you know, nobody, I mean, murder happens every single day. Who wants to talk about it?

• 35:20Steven Bartlett?

  Some people do.

• 35:21Speaker 00

  I know, not me.

• 35:24Steven Bartlett?

  You got closer to the mafia when your father was sent down. And this was the point where you decided not to go to school. The boss of the Colombo family.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 35:33Steven Bartlett?

  Brings you close, brings you under his wing. Do you have to do some kind of training or something to join the mafia? Is there any, or you do?

• 35:41Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Well, when you come into, here's what happened. I leave there, a captain in the family picked me up and took me to see the boss. Now, unfortunately, Joe Colombo was assassinated. He was shot, seriously wounded. He lingered for about seven years and then he died as a result of these wounds. So a new boss took over and he's, he's passed away now. And I sat with him. This was about two weeks after my father sent word downtown that he was proposing me to be part of that life. You can't just go up to somebody and say, I'd like to join. Somebody has to propose you, vouch for you, say you have what it takes. There's a lot of nepotism in that life. A lot of fathers brought their sons in, their nephews, whatever. So in my case, it was my dad that proposed me. And so I sat with the boss and he said to me, here's the deal.

• 36:25Speaker 00

  You want to become a member of our life. Your father sent the message. Is that true? And I said, yes. He's, well, here's the deal. From now on, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you're on call to serve this family, the Colombo family. That means if your mother is sick and she's dying, you're at her bedside. We call you to service. You leave your mother, you come and serve us. From now on, we're number one in your life before anything and everything. When and if we feel you've deserved this privilege, this honor to become a member, we'll let you know. That's it. And do you accept that? And I said, yes, I do. And so for the next two and a half years, I was in like a recruit pledge period where I had to do anything and everything I was told to do. Prove myself worthy.

• 37:07Speaker 00

  Could have been something very menial, a lot of discipline in that life, a lot of authority, a lot of alleged respect. You had a meeting at eight o'clock, you weren't there at seven 30, you were late. You can never be late in that life. I don't care what the situation is. You had a meeting at, at eight o'clock, if there was traffic and you were concerned, come the night before and sleep in the car. Can never be late, no excuses. You know, drive the boss to a meeting, sit in the car three, four, five hours. God forbid you leave, you go to restroom, get a newspaper, he comes out, you're not there. Oh my gosh, we could have had trouble. You were the getaway driver, you weren't there. I know I did that once and I paid the price, you know, for it. That's very serious stuff.

• 37:45Steven Bartlett?

  You paid the price?

• 37:46Speaker 00

  Well, paid the price. In other words, I got a real good tongue lashing, I'll tell you, you know. You know, just stuff like that. They kind of put you on the shelf for two weeks, you know, to make you understand the seriousness of what you did, so you never do it again. You never repeat your mistakes in that life. If you're smart, you wanna, if you wanna, number one, wanna survive, and number two, you wanna move up. You never repeat your mistakes. So, you know, things like that. And then, look, I'm gonna be honest with you, you know, as honest as I possibly can. It's a violent life at times. If you're part of the life in some shape or form, you're part of the violence. And if anybody tells you differently, they're either not being honest, or they weren't a made member of that life. And that's just how it goes.

• 38:25Steven Bartlett?

  Why'd you say that? Because you said, you said the menial, and then you said, it's a violent life. Are you, are you saying that in that sort of probationary two years, you had to do both of those things? You had to be involved in the violence and do the menial stuff?

• 38:39Speaker 00

  Let's put it this way. They gotta have enough faith in you that you can be capable of doing whatever it is they tell you to do. They have to, they have to understand that and feel that, because if they don't feel that, you're not going anywhere. That, that's it. So during that time, you're gonna be tested.

• 38:58Steven Bartlett?

  And you were tested?

• 38:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:01Steven Bartlett?

  When, when they made you pledge that if your mother was dying, and you were at her bedside, and they called you and asked you to do something, you'd leave, would you have left if your mother was dying?

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Back then, I mean, I might have. I mean, you know, I was a, I was a play-by-the-rule guy. You know, I, uh, you know, I, I was very fortunate in that I had a great teacher in my dad. He was a student and master of the life. And so, and I was like a sponge. I absorbed whatever my dad told me. I listened. And, you know, some of the things that he told me were, were right. So I might have at the time. I'm gonna be honest with you. I mean, I, I don't know. It, it, it would have to depend on what's happening at that moment. But, you know, I was so indoctrinated into that life at some point. Um, it's who I was.

• 39:49Steven Bartlett?

  Sounds a bit like a cult. In a way.

• 39:52Speaker 00

  It's cult like, I guess, you know, in a way. I mean, we didn't do silly things, you know. We wouldn't have rituals and ceremonies other than that one, yeah. Other than that one, nothing after that, but.

• 40:05Steven Bartlett?

  What did it teach you about people's skills? Because you're around these bosses, these very talented men. You're seeing how they conduct themselves, do business, influence people, win friends. What did that phase of your life teach you about how to be a motivator slash manipulator of people?

• 40:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, it taught me well. I think I got it. You know, there's kind of two levels in that life. You're either a racketeer or you're a gangster.

• 40:36Steven Bartlett?

  What's the difference?

• 40:36Speaker 00

  I'll tell you the difference.

• 40:39Speaker 00

  A gangster is a guy that really doesn't know how to use that life to benefit him in business. So he's more of a, I don't want to say tough guy, I don't want to say the term, but he's more of a guy that, hey, we had something done. This is the guy, send him out, let him do it, because you've got to earn your keep in that life.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  We in the Colombo family had a hundred and fifteen made guys at that time. Out of the hundred and fifteen, twenty of us were really earning money. And supporting the family in some way and, and really elevating the family. We were racketeers. Now, a gangster could never really be a racketeer, he just doesn't know how. But a racketeer has to be a gangster also, because you're going to be called upon. Not as much as this guy, but when you're called upon, you've got to do it. So, you know, I was more of a racketeer. And as a result of that, I was constantly in business disputes and sitting down with other guys. And you have to learn, you know, how to negotiate. I mean, I learned the art of negotiation at these sit downs.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  You know, learned how to try to, you know, really, before I walk into a meeting with somebody, number one, try to know the personality of that person. Know if there's a fallback position, if I'm not winning, what I'll accept. And so I had to prepare myself for these meetings, because unprepared, you know, they'll chew you up. Because a lot of these old timers were very skillful. And believe me, you could be a hundred percent right and end up wrong and they'll put you in a, in a trap. So you really had to know what you were doing. And so my people's skills in that regard, as far as negotiating and identifying a true leader, um, were really honed to a, a, you know, a high degree because I came out on top many, many times.

• 42:24Steven Bartlett?

  What are the, the principles of, in your view of a good sell or a good negotiation? Are there, and are there small things that you saw within the mafia that you probably don't see in the outside world? One of them you've already named, which is this idea of being really punctual.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 42:38Steven Bartlett?

  But what, and it seems like respect is at the very heart of much of what you've said. What are those small things that are important for a negotiation or a sales pitch in your view?

• 42:48Speaker 00

  Well, understand, you know, again, you know, I always learned this, there's sometimes you can walk into a room and be the smartest person in the room. You don't want anybody to know that. And you want people to just talk. Let, you know, just talk, give them an opening, give them, throw them a bone so that they're going to come back and talk and, and learn the personality of this person. Learn, you can learn so much from people just when they talk and you keep quiet. There's other times when you're not the smartest person in the room. And by keeping quiet, nobody knows that. What is this guy thinking? What, you know, what is this thinking? It's a tremendous technique. And in that life, it was extremely valuable for me. I was always the last guy to talk. Don't tell me everything,

• 43:30Speaker 00

  you know? And it helped me kind of master that art in that life because you had, these guys, never sell them short. There were some very smart guys there. If they weren't in that life, they would have been successful somewhere else, you know, very smart. So you had to really know what you were doing because the consequences too are very severe. I mean, you could walk in there and lose your shirt, you know, because the boss could say, hey, not only are you going to pay this guy this, but you're going to pay the family everything else. And everything you got, I'm taking away from you right now. Those, that's how severe it could have been. So you, yes, you really had to know. I'll tell you this, when I, I think you know, I was in the gas business, right? The gas tax business. I was defrauding the government out of tax on every gallon of gasoline. It was probably

• 44:13Speaker 00

  the biggest scam since the days of prohibition.

• 44:16Steven Bartlett?

  Explain to me how that was even possible.

• 44:19Speaker 00

  The law at that time is that the gas tax was collected by a wholesaler. You had to be a licensed wholesaler. But the government really wasn't up to their collection process. So to make a long story short, I had eighteen companies that were licensed to collect the tax on every gallon of gasoline. They were all shell companies, every single one of them, alright? And they were all Panamanian companies. Why Panama? Because Panama, a corporation in Panama had bare stock. You give me the stock, I'm the owner. I give it to you, you're the owner. So we didn't have to give a lot of information. The only reason I needed the company was number one, to get the license, and number two, to open a bank account. I didn't need brick and mortar, I need anything, right? That's all I needed.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  So, so now I'm allowed to collect the tax. Well, we had a very sophisticated process or strategy to collect that tax for about ten, eleven, sometimes a whole year before the government came down on us. Because we had to report, we had to pay quarterly and so on and so. They were very slow, they were very slow. So we, we had a way to keep them at bay for almost a year. When they finally came down on us, we closed the office, closed the, that license and just started operating under a new license. Well, I ran this for seven years.

• 45:36Steven Bartlett?

  So just to summarize, I'll make sure I'm clear. You had the supply chain coming from Panama? That was where the?

• 45:41Speaker 00

  No, we had, we had the companies were Panamanian companies.

• 45:44Steven Bartlett?

  Ah, okay, right. So where was the gas coming from?

• 45:46Speaker 00

  Gas was coming from, we were buying barges as they came over from the Middle East. And we were buying gas from all the major oil companies.

• 45:53Steven Bartlett?

  Ah, okay. So you bought the gas with a shell company in Panama, which allowed you to get the wholesale license so that you could collect the tax from the retailer?

• 46:01Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 46:02Steven Bartlett?

  Of the gas? And then you would sell it to the retailer? And then when the government come for their tax, maybe twelve months later, you say, sorry, the company's gone bust and you shut it down?

• 46:11Speaker 00

  You wouldn't say anything. The door would be closed, there would be nobody there. They wouldn't even know where to go.

• 46:15Steven Bartlett?

  Ah, okay.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:16Steven Bartlett?

  So you, were you then giving the retailer a discount on the gas?

• 46:19Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 46:19Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  You know, I, the way I do it, let's say, you know, and I had three hundred and fifty gas stations I either owned or operated, three hundred plus gas stations, we either owned or operated, leased, whatever. But if we would go buy a gas station on a corner where there were four stations, and you have a lot of that in New York, we would buy one station, lease one station, could have been a mobile, any brand, didn't matter. And we'd get the other three station owners and say, "Come here, we want to talk to you. Here's the deal, okay? Whatever you sell the gas for, we're gonna be two cents cheaper. If you go down five, we'll go down ten. If you go down ten, we'll go down twenty." Because I had forty cents to work with, in most cases. I said, "We'll put you out of business. So just stay, understand that we're gonna stay two cents. We don't want to kill you. We want you to earn money, but we're always gonna be cheaper."

• 47:03Speaker 00

  Before you know it, they're buying all their gas from us anyway. And so we were selling all, all four stations, you know, being supplied by us. Because, look, the gas station owner, if you're saving them five, six, seven cents a gallon, ten cents a gallon, it's a lot of money. You know, if they're doing volume, too. So we were selling gas to everybody. Branded stations, unbranded stations, didn't matter. And the government just could not keep up with us. So when I realized what I had, you'll appreciate this. I went to my boss at the time, Carmichael Persico, he's passed on now. And we called him Junior. And I said, "Junior, here's the deal. I'm gonna show you more money than you've ever seen in your life." Because I realized what I had, right? He says, "We don't do drugs." I says, "Not drugs? You know I hate drugs. It has nothing to do with drugs." He's, "What is it?" I said, "It's gas."

• 47:48Speaker 00

  "Gas?" I said, "Yes." "Tax money." "Oh, okay, that's clean." I said, "But here's the deal. Everybody's gonna want a piece of this. Everybody on the street, when they realize what we, what I have here, they're gonna want a piece of it. So here's what you have to do. You have to make me win every argument." I said, "Anytime I sit down, doesn't matter what family it is." I said, "Don't play politics." You know, I says, "I'm, I'm not telling you as the boss what to do, but I'm telling you I'm gonna make you wealthy." So I said, "Make me win every argument. I'm gonna be right anyway. I'll come in right." I said, "So make, make me win. I'll make you more money than you've ever seen before." "I'll never forget, Stevie, just sit back like this," he said. "Show me." Okay, I was bringing in two million dollars a week it built up to.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  That buys a lot of loyalty and a lot of wins on the street. Cause I was constantly sitting down with people. They wanted a piece, wanted this, wanted that. Then if somebody wasn't, I wasn't the only guy in the business. We just did it better than anybody else. But if somebody wanted to buy gas from us, I'd say, okay, but you gotta pay. If you don't pay, it's gonna be a problem. So when people didn't pay, we had to sit down. I always won. You know, so it was, uh, I mean, look, it elevated. I became a captain as a result of the money that I was turning in. And I had a big crew under me, you know, I was living a lifetime in a jet plane. I had helicopter, I had a lot. We're bringing in seven, eight, nine, 10 million dollars a week at times. It was that big. Selling a half a billion gallons of gas a month.

• 49:14Speaker 00

  Taking down 30, 40 cents a gallon, whatever we decided to charge somebody at that time. It's a lot of money.

• 49:20Steven Bartlett?

  That's a lot of money. I think I'm in the wrong business.

• 49:23Speaker 00

  No, you're in the right. Yeah, yeah. From what I understand, you're doing pretty well, so it's okay.

• 49:28Steven Bartlett?

  Seven to 10 million a week, I'm not doing that well. Does this little gas loophole still work?

• 49:34Speaker 00

  Let's put it this way, I'm out of it and, uh, I don't even wanna, I don't even wanna be tempted.

• 49:42Steven Bartlett?

  So if I wanted to become a made man back then, which is basically when you kind of swear the oath.

• 49:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:47Steven Bartlett?

  And you join the mafia, that was after your two years of sort of probationary period, being an intern. I mean, that process of becoming a made man sounded a little bit culty.

• 49:58Speaker 00

  Well, I'll tell you this, you know, when I got straightened out, and we call it straightened out, believe it or not. You're straightened out, that's when you become a made man.

• 50:06Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 50:06Speaker 00

  You know, same term, but that was in 1975. For 20 years prior to that, almost 25 years, they had a term that the books were closed. They weren't bringing any new guys into the life, and that was nationwide.

• 50:21Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 50:21Speaker 00

  Security reasons, they said. The only time you can make a guy is if a guy died in a family, you could replace him. So you're replacing the ranks, but you couldn't bring anybody else in. Well, in the mid 70s, they opened the books. Okay, now we're gonna start to build the families up again. When I was made, there was guys waiting 20 years, 25 years. Yeah, that were part of that and just waiting for the day when they can have their turn. So I was, you know, definitely a younger guy. I mean, it was a couple of younger guys that got in at that time. You know, the double edged sword because there's a lot of resentment to the young guys that got in after two, three years and guys are waiting twenty, twenty five years, you know, you, it's like anything else, just that you have the resentment from the older guys and

• 51:05Speaker 00

  I had to deal with that. It's just that, again, it's a little more severe on the street than it would be in normal life.

• 51:11Steven Bartlett?

  Do you still, you become a made man, you have to swear an oath to the mafia. What is that oath that you swear?

• 51:19Speaker 00

  Well, for me, it was Halloween night, nineteen seventy five, when I took the oath. It was me and five other guys that night. And you don't have any preparation. They just tell you, wear a suit. And then all of a sudden, that night, it happens. You kind of get maybe a little inkling because you're waiting for this to happen. And we walked into a room individually. It was late at night, very solemn ceremony, a dimly lit room. The boss was seated at the head of like a horseshoe configuration, the underboss and the consigliere were to his left and right, and all the capo regimes were alongside of them. Soldiers can't attend this, only the capos, only the brass of the family. I walked down the aisle, stood in front of the boss, I held out my hand, he took a knife, cut my finger, some blood

• 52:01Speaker 00

  dropped on the floor, this is a blood oath. I cupped my hands, he took a picture of a saint, Catholic altar guard, put it in my hands, lit it a flame, didn't hurt it, burnt quickly, it was merely symbolic. And he said, tonight, Michael Francis, you are born again into a new life, into cousin Austria, this thing of ours. Violate what you know about this life, betray your brothers, and you will die and burn in hell like the saint is burning in your hands. Do you accept? Yes, I do. And that's how it started. That's the oath. Very fast, very simple, very serious.

• 52:34Steven Bartlett?

  Were you scared when you walked into that room?

• 52:36Speaker 00

  I was exhilarated that night. I was like, wow, finally, you know, I'm going to have this even closer bond with my dad. I've worked for this now for two and a half years. I was exhilarated that night. I mean, and so were the other five guys, everybody.

• 52:53Steven Bartlett?

  Why, when you look back with the wisdom that you have now, as to why you joined that life, I know your father was a catalyst in some respects, but I imagine it's probably a bit more complex than it just being about your father. What were your genuine motivations?

• 53:08Speaker 00

  You know, quite honestly, I didn't aspire to be a mob guy. I mean, even though I admired my dad, it's not the path that I wanted to take. It didn't, and you say, wow, I wish I could do that. You know, and it's kind of odd because a lot of the young people I speak to now, all these gang bangers, I go into juvenile halls and prisons, and they say the same thing. Wow, you guys had all the money, you had all the power, you had the cars, you had the women, and it turned them on. And that's what wanted, they wanted to be that guy. I didn't have that feeling, maybe because I grew up with it, maybe because that was my dad. Um, you know, we didn't grow up poor, weren't wealthy, but we didn't really, you know, want for anything. We, we had a roof over our head, we went on vacation every once in a while.

• 53:51Speaker 00

  So we didn't struggle financially in that regard. So, I mean, it's not something I aspired to be. It was strictly, strictly to help my dad.

• 53:59Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 54:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, it really was. Then, of course, as I get into the process, well, now I want to complete it. I want to become that made guy, I'm working for it. You know, it's like anything I do, you know, I want to complete it, I want to succeed. So that became part of it. And then, you know, because watching my dad is one thing, going through the process, understanding what the life is about, being around the other guys that were mentoring me. Now I, I started to really get an understanding of the life.

• 54:27Steven Bartlett?

  Dare I say, you sound like you were maybe slightly different in, in a sense of your intentions of being there were slightly different from those around you in that life. What, what were everybody else's intentions? What were their motivations? And I was wondering, as you were speaking about the different personality types you must have encountered in that life. I've heard you say before, there are two types of people in the mafia. People who enjoyed killing and people who were just following orders. Which camp were you in?

• 54:59Speaker 00

  Oh, definitely following orders. I mean, I was, listen, there was some, you know, I can mention his name because everybody knows it is now, but there's a guy by the name of Roy DeMeo, I don't know if you've ever heard that guy. Roy was, uh... You know, it was, he was a serial killer, no question. But what I say about Roy, and I knew him. Roy would have been a serial killer if he wasn't in the mafia. The mafia didn't make him a serial killer. That's just who he was. I mean, he enjoyed it. You know, and there were guys like that.

• 55:29Steven Bartlett?

  He enjoyed it?

• 55:30Speaker 00

  I think so, had to. Because how, how could you do that? I mean.

• 55:34Steven Bartlett?

  What did he do?

• 55:35Speaker 00

  Couple of hundred murders. And if you, you know, he had a place called the Gemini Club. It was a, uh, it was a club that he had. And they described the way they would kill. Because some people became informants that were involved with him. And, I mean, killing people, chopping up bodies, I mean, it was gruesome. You know, I mean, you're a different kind of human being if you're doing stuff like that. You know?

• 56:01Steven Bartlett?

  Have you, have you, your experience in the mafia must have taught you something about the nature of humans? And what we're capable of, because we all walk around thinking that we're quote unquote, good. And that we are just, we were born with this perfect sort of moral compass. And that none of us are capable of doing violent things, or morbid things, or amoral things. But you must have a slightly different perspective on that.

• 56:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, not true at all. I think just the opposite. I think we all have something in us that, you know, if we're triggered in the right way, we can, we can do damage. Let's put it that way. I've seen that my whole life. Sometimes for the right reasons, and sometimes for the wrong reasons. You know, obviously, if you're in defense of your family, of your friend, I mean, you, you might do some horrible things to, to somebody who's trying to victimize them.

• 56:52Speaker 00

  But there's others that, you know, just do it because they can do it. And I've seen that, I've seen both.

• 56:59Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think things like murder are part of human nature?

• 57:02Speaker 00

  Yes, absolutely. I do believe that.

• 57:10Speaker 00

  I mean, you know, and I want to be clear on this, be careful on this, murder is murder. Murder is murder. The reason you commit it is another thing. But listen, you go into the military, you're killing people on the other side. Why are you doing it? Well, I'm defending my country and I get it and I understand that. And that's a noble thing.

• 57:32Speaker 00

  Supposedly, right? But you're still committing murders. You're still having in you. You could have been the nicest guy in the world. Okay, you could have been the most laid back, soft person in the world. You go into the military, they're gonna teach you to be a killer and you're gonna do it. So you have it in you. You know, um.

• 57:50Speaker 00

  It's a tough thing, but I think, I think everybody has the capability of doing something. Doing damage, let's, let me use that word.

• 57:59Steven Bartlett?

  How have you been affected by what you saw? Because I can imagine your eyes have seen, seen some things that mine absolutely haven't. And it's, it's impossible to think that one can just shake that off.

• 58:12Speaker 00

  You know, I've, I've been blessed in a way that sometimes my wife gets upset with me that I can compartmentalize things pretty well. And I think it's a result of being in that life. And I, I think this is what triggered it for me, Steve. I had a, a fella, when my dad went to prison, he was a, they called him Artie the Animal. He's a real tough guy, right? He was a Jewish guy. But I loved him, he was like a second dad for me. My father and him were very close. When my dad went away, he kinda, again, took not only me, but my whole family. Very close with his family. He had younger kids, his, his wife was, was wonderful. And, um, he got murdered. I was young, I was seventeen, eighteen years old. And he got murdered. No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

• 58:56Speaker 00

  I meant to say, it was when my dad first went into prison, so I was nineteen or twenty. And, um,

• 59:04Speaker 00

  I walked into the funeral parlor, I'll never forget. And his sister came up to me and hugged me. And she said, "You need to come with me. You need to look at what these animals did to my brother." I'll never forget the words. The coffin was closed.

• 59:21Speaker 00

  And she opened the coffin. And he was unrecognizable. He was a guy I loved.

• 59:28Speaker 00

  I didn't faint, but it got to me. It really got to me. I'd never seen anything like that before in reality, especially somebody I really cared for, really loved. And it did have an impact on me, there's no question. But somehow, I was able to get beyond that as a young person. I don't know what that says about me in that regard. And I'm able to do that about certain things. You know, even if it's wrong, this was wrong, but I can't sit on it. I can't let it get to me. I can't, I gotta overcome it. And I think that was a defining moment in my life, to be able to move that and then continue to move into the life.

• 1:00:13Speaker 00

  Because I said, this is part of it.

• 1:00:16Steven Bartlett?

  Do you regret that she did that, that she showed you him?

• 1:00:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I didn't need to see that. I didn't need to. She did it out of love. She didn't do it out of, because she loved me and she was his sister. Devastated. And I think she felt close enough to me because she knew how I cared about Artie and how he cared about me. So she just, it was grief. No other reason, you know? It was a sincere move that she did. But I didn't need to see that. And you know what? There's times when I have visions of that. My wife, you know, I have a tendency in my sleep, things don't come out of me when I'm awake. But when I'm in my sleep, she says, you know, you had a fight last night, who was it with?

• 1:01:03Speaker 00

  And it happens fairly often. You know, more than I think a normal person. But I don't remember. I wake up, hey, I'm fine.

• 1:01:12Steven Bartlett?

  You see him in your sleep?

• 1:01:15Speaker 00

  I have, yeah, I have. Again, that was like boom, you know, when something just impacts you in a way like, whoa.

• 1:01:25Steven Bartlett?

  Well, I compartmentalizing sounds like a good short term strategy to to things, to grief, to traumatic events and things, but I I don't know if I believe one can truly compartmentalize something forever without it rearing its its head something somewhere else. I almost see it like kind of like whack a mole. Like I might be able to shut it down in this part of my life, but it's probably going to emerge over here in some other way.

• 1:01:51Speaker 00

  I agree with that. I I think when something is so severe, even at that moment, I think it could it could last and come out in different ways. You know, um, you know, I mean, another thing, I mean, there was a very dear friend of mine, you know, it was like a brother to me, and he ended up getting killed. And that had an impact on me, because I honestly tried to save him and I couldn't. Yeah, because he he, without getting into the details, he did something that was total violation of our life. And he he lost his life as a result of it. And I couldn't save him. I tried, but I couldn't.

• 1:02:32Steven Bartlett?

  He was in the mafia?

• 1:02:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:35Steven Bartlett?

  So there was a sit down, I'm presuming, and it was decided that he wasn't gonna live?

• 1:02:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:40Steven Bartlett?

  Were you in a sit down?

• 1:02:42Speaker 00

  I was in I was in a number of sit downs in my life, you know. Um, yeah, it was uh, it was a tough one. You know, one of the horrors of that life is, you know, you make a mistake, your best friend walks you into that room, you don't walk out again. And throughout the course of my life, I've seen that, obviously. I've seen guys that, you know, were here one day, gone the next. And it's uh, it's it's one of the evil parts of that life. There's no question. And I saw guys that that died for the wrong reasons. You know, it's like anything else, you know, in in the corporate world, you have greed and you have backstabbing and all of that, but you lose your job, you lose some money,

• 1:03:23Speaker 00

  you move on. In that life, the consequences are severe. So, um.

• 1:03:29Steven Bartlett?

  I was thinking about my best friend. And I was thinking if my best friend did something which was disrespectful in some way, I don't know, he stole something, maybe he, something even more extreme, he slept with my sister. You know.

• 1:03:51Steven Bartlett?

  I wouldn't want him to die.

• 1:03:53Speaker 00

  No, you wouldn't want him to die.

• 1:03:55Steven Bartlett?

  But in the life you came from, he would, he would die.

• 1:03:57Speaker 00

  It's, uh, it's a po- it's the most severe policy. I'll, I'll tell you this. I'll tell you how severe it is. There was another guy, you know, and I don't have to mention his name. It was two brothers that were made guys in that life, and I was friendly with them both. One of them happened to be in our family, the other one was with another family. But I drove him home to Brooklyn one day. And, um, he got out of the car and I said, I'll see you. He said, no, wait, wait, don't leave yet. I said, okay, I waited. So he opened the door of his house. And he looked in and like he was looking at something. I wasn't really paying attention, but then I seen him close the door and come out. And he got in the car and I said, what happened? He said, well, nobody's home.

• 1:04:40Speaker 00

  I said, but that's your house. What do you mean, nobody's home? Why doesn't somebody have to be home? And he said, I can't go in my house. I said, what do you mean? Well, his father had been caught fooling around with somebody else's wife or daughter at the time. And him and his brother were given the contract. And he killed his father. And he said, anytime I walk in the house, if I'm alone, the ghost of my father is in there and haunts me. So he said, I haven't been in my house alone in twenty some odd years.

• 1:05:11Steven Bartlett?

  He killed his own father?

• 1:05:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:15Speaker 00

  Now, I, I wanna, you know, I don't wanna, how should I say this? I don't wanna give the impression that that's what the life is all about every day and all the time. It's not. But there are extreme cases where these things happen. And that's what makes it a bad life. And I call it an evil life because families are destroyed as a result of this. I don't know any family of any made member of that life that hasn't been devastated. Including my own. Now, not my wife and kids. I've been able to spare them of that, praise God, but my mother, thirty-three years without a husband. When she passed away in two thousand twelve, her relationship with my dad, ugly.

• 1:05:58Speaker 00

  Because she blamed him for everything that went wrong, rightfully so. He was gone all these forty years, my dad did on that fifty. So what went wrong? My sister, twenty-seven years old, dies of an overdose of drugs.

• 1:06:11Speaker 00

  My brother, twenty-five years of drug addicts. Steve, you don't know what I had to do to save his life so many times. Kid, you know, drug addict. If he wasn't my brother, my father's son, he would have never made it. My younger sister, forty years old, she died young. She was never mentally stable. The whole family was devastated. And my father ended up doing forty years out of fifty in that prison. He was out a few times on parole, but forty years out of the fifty. His life destroyed, basically. So any lifestyle that does that to a family is a bad life. It's an evil life. And I don't know any family of any member that hasn't met a similar fate in some way, shape, or form. So, you know, I came to that conclusion.

• 1:06:55Speaker 00

  I said, this is, this is bad. And what got me out of it, you know, I met a young girl and I fell in love with. She was twenty years old, my wife. We're married thirty-nine years this week. I said, am I gonna do this to this girl? Marry her? I'm a major target. I'm never gonna get away with this long term. I had huge bullseye on my back. I went to trial five times. I had seven indictments, arrested eighteen times. They were never gonna let me go. They had a fourteen-agency task force that was assigned to put me in jail forever. It's all documented. So I said, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna marry this girl and in two years I'll be in jail for the rest of my life. So that's what started to give me, I gotta get away from this.

• 1:07:41Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think you would have gotten away from it just with the well of love alone?

• 1:07:46Speaker 00

  No. If it was, you know, I really thought about this myself so often. You know, I had an incident where my dad actually betrayed me. And it was devastating to me. And it made me think, I said, if this life can separate father and son, what do I really have here? What do we really have? What are we doing here? And I didn't meet my wife until two years after that. But I don't, if that act of betrayal didn't happen for my dad, I don't know if I would have ever left the life because the pull he had on me was very strong. I don't know if I would have walked away.

• 1:08:26Speaker 00

  But I think that had to happen to kind of separate me from him and really make me understand that this life, if it could separate us, what is it?

• 1:08:36Steven Bartlett?

  What was the betrayal?

• 1:08:39Speaker 00

  I was called into a room one night. It was over money and there was an article that came out in a Long Island newspaper, I think it was the Long Island Press out of circulation now, that said I was becoming powerful enough to take over, to start my own family, break away from the Columbo, start my own family. No truth in it whatsoever. Some reporter just made it up because I was doing well. I had a jet plane, helicopter, big crew. I was in the media.

• 1:09:03Steven Bartlett?

  What was your net worth and how old were you?

• 1:09:06Speaker 00

  I was, uh, well, when I walked away from that life, I was thirty-four. This was, I was around thirty at that point, twenty-nine, thirty.

• 1:09:13Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know what your net worth was?

• 1:09:15Speaker 00

  I have no idea because I had a lot of cash. It was in the millions for sure. It was a lot of money. And then it was saying that I had defrauded the government at two billion dollars. It wasn't two billion. It was a lot of money, but you know, they always, they always exaggerate. So now guys on the street are starting to get a little two billion dollars, his own family. I had the Russians. I had organized the Russians with me. We had a very strong crew, had a lot of guys around me. So I think to, they walked me into that room one night and my father was in there before me. And I mean, I could, this story can take an hour, so I don't want to hold you up with it, but the bottom line is, I,

• 1:09:55Speaker 00

  I, I talked my sense into them and said, basically, I'm bringing you all this money and I'm being put on the spot for this? I said, I'm taking all the risk. Nobody else is in jeopardy here. These are my guys. Nobody knows who you are. I purposely kept my guys away from them so that if my thing ever blew up, we wouldn't be hurting any of the guys in the family. And I said, and now I'm being questioned? I said, they write an article about me, all of a sudden it's true, they write about everybody else, it's false? So, I started to get angry with the boss, you don't do that, you know, you know that, you never outshine the master, you know that principle, and that life for sure. So I calmed myself down, I said, okay, I'm walking out of here, everything's gonna be alright.

• 1:10:40Speaker 00

  And then we finished up and, you know, we've a glass of wine, everything's great, you know, the usual thing. And then, it wasn't until I got in the car with the guy that drove me there, who I knew my whole life, he was a captain along with me. And I got in the car and I got very upset with him, I said, you knew, you didn't tell me what was happening here tonight, I was walking into a trap, and you don't prepare me, you don't say anything to me. You know what he said, Steve? He looked at me and he said, if it was the other way around, would you have told me? And I said, he was a smart guy, and I said, no. I said, Michael, you know the life as well as anybody, you grew up around the best. I said, okay. I get out of, I go to get out of the car and he grabs my hand, my arm, and he says, I'm gonna tell you something,

• 1:11:25Speaker 00

  you're not gonna wanna hear this, but it's the truth, I am your friend. He said, we live by a certain code, but I am your friend. I said, what? Your father was in there before you tonight, he didn't help you one bit, he hurt you in there tonight. And I was like devastated, I said, what do you mean? And I said it to myself, I didn't ask him, I couldn't even answer him. I wa, I was starting, I got out of the car and was walking towards my car and I started to think. Knowing my father so well, I said, I know what he did. Hey, my son is stealing, he does everything, I'm on parole, I don't know what he's doing, I have no idea, he just kinda took the high road and left me on my own, instead of standing up for me, because we were both captains at that point.

• 1:12:07Speaker 00

  My dad could have forcefully said, I dare you, my son would never rob me, he could have really came out, but he didn't. I was really on my own. And that could have been dangerous. You know, again, the traps that they set up for you during that time, because believe me, they would have loved to take over my business and just, you know. And you got to watch for that. So the traps that were set up, you know, fortunately, I was able to navigate them, but uh, it really was devastating because I said, how could that happen?

• 1:12:34Steven Bartlett?

  You were running multiple businesses at that point, not just the fuel business?

• 1:12:38Speaker 00

  No, I had, I had, uh, well, you know, I had legitimate business. I had two automobile agencies. I had a Mazda dealership. Very successful. I had a Chevrolet dealership, successful. I had a leasing company. I had a film production company at that time. I was making movies. I made about thirty films during that time. All horror exploitation films, they were big at that point. I had a number of restaurants that I was involved in. Um, I had a video shop and video, you know, cassettes and everything were big. Didn't compete with Blockbuster, but we had a good neighborhood spot, you know, so I had a lot of things going on. I had a lot of money on the street. I was lending money out to, uh, to a lot of my own guys. I'd lend it to them. They in turn would lend it to somebody else. You know, so I mean, I had, I had, I had a lot going on.

• 1:13:22Steven Bartlett?

  And did you have to pay a tax to the mafia for earning money? Did you have to then pay the mafia some of that money?

• 1:13:27Speaker 00

  If it was illegitimate, yes.

• 1:13:29Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, so if it's legal, no?

• 1:13:30Speaker 00

  If it's legal, no, unless they contributed in some way, and they didn't. My dealerships were mine. I didn't owe them anything. You know, my, my film company was mine. Uh, but anything I had on the street, yes, you have to pay up.

• 1:13:42Steven Bartlett?

  How did being part of the mafia help you in business? Could you just, you told me the gas station story. I imagine you weren't strong arming your way all the time into business. Or were you?

• 1:13:53Speaker 00

  Didn't have to strong arm, you know, uh, listen, the Mazda agencies that I got, people knew who I was. You know, I was going broke. I didn't have any money. I was on trial a couple. I was broke. But I told the guy, I said, listen, I understand the business. I'm very aggressive. Give me the, give me the place. You know who my father is, you know? Oh, you got it. I'm going broke. So he gave me the dealership, basically. And then through a series of things, I was able to get floor planning. I mean, it was a whole stuff. I worked hard, Steve. I was a seven day a week working guy. Worked hard. I kind of understood certain things like, you know, I, right away, there was a guy in General Electric Credit, you know, I went to him. I knew he kind of was fascinated with the life.

• 1:14:37Speaker 00

  And I said to him, look, I need a floor plan for my cars. I don't have any money. I said, I need a couple hundred thousand dollars. I gotta be able to buy cars from Mazda. I said, I'll give you so much your car. I said, you floor plan me. I'll play it straight with you. Every car I sell, I'll give you a couple hundred bucks. He was in trouble. He floor planned me. That's how I got the floor plan. What's the floor plan? Floor plan is financing to buy the cars from, from the manufacturer so you can put them on your yacht. Oh, okay. They don't give you credit. You gotta buy them. When does it all come crashing down for you? Well.

• 1:15:12Speaker 00

  Came crashing down, really, like I, I had went to trial five times and is either dismissed or acquitted in every case. I beat him five times. But it came crashing down in the gasoline tax case, my partner, who he and I developed this scheme together. He was really the brains of it. I was the polish. I knew how to do certain things that he couldn't do, but he came up with a scheme. I brought the accountant in. I brought a certain strategy in. I brought people to the table. And I made sure nobody messed up and we got the right money. I was, I was the expansion part of the business, you know? And he became an informant. He got in trouble on an unrelated case. And they told him, listen, you're going to jail forever unless you give us Michael.

• 1:15:57Speaker 00

  And that's when it started to come down on me. I took a plea to the gasoline case. Even though he had testified against me in a prior case and I was acquitted, we destroyed him on the stand. He wasn't a good witness. But part of my strategy, I'll take a plea, I'll marry, I knew my wife at that point. I'm gonna marry this girl. I'll get a lower sentence by taking a plea. I'll give the government back some money. I gave up my plane, my helicopter, the whole bit. Take it. Forfeitures. I had five million in forfeitures and fifteen million in restitution that I had to pay them. So it was part of my strategy to take a plea, do some time, give them some money. Move out to the West Coast, marry this girl, and then try to get out of life. It's part of my strategy, really. How'd you feel about him?

• 1:16:42Speaker 00

  You know, I'm gonna tell you God's honest truth. He was six, six foot four, almost six five, four hundred and fifty pounds. Big guy. He wasn't a sloppy fat. He was a big guy, right? We were together seven, eight years, never had an argument. His kids called me Uncle Michael. I was married before for a short time. And my young kids called him Uncle Larry. We made millions together.

• 1:17:10Speaker 00

  But I knew he was weak. I knew if he ever got in trouble. And, um, look, when he got in trouble, they said to me, we'll take care of him for you. And I said, listen, I'm gonna fight him. His wife, I know his family, I can't do it. I said, just, I'll fight him in court. They were upset with me for making that decision. And that was my decision. I said, I'll fight him in court. And, um, that's what happened.

• 1:17:35Steven Bartlett?

  How'd you feel about him?

• 1:17:39Speaker 00

  It's almost like,

• 1:17:42Speaker 00

  I couldn't even be really upset with him. Cause we were, we got along so well, we made so much money. I just knew he was weak. So, you know, I learned one thing, Steve. I, I try not to put the blame on anybody else. Anything that goes wrong, I take responsibility for personally. I should've known better. Even if some guy does me wrong, why didn't I figure that out? Why didn't I know this? I always try to take responsibility so I don't make the same mistake again. It's worked for me my whole life. When you start playing a blame game and start, all it does, it's, it's a sign of weakness, in my view. And, you know, if you accept responsibility for everything, even when it really isn't your fault, and you say, I should've known better, come on. How did I do this? Why did I let this guy get, take advantage of me like this?

• 1:18:26Speaker 00

  You know, until right now, I have a situation now, I'm saying the same thing. My fault, you know, what am I gonna do? Get mad? You know? So, you know, it's just the way I operate, so, was I really upset with him? Like, you know, no.

• 1:18:40Steven Bartlett?

  When you say you knew he was weak, how are you defining weakness and strength?

• 1:18:45Speaker 00

  I knew if he got in trouble, he wouldn't stand up. He would cooperate. He didn't wanna go to prison. He was, he wasn't a guy that was gonna do jail time. I knew that. And, uh, and my other guy, you know, one of the things is, my boss always wanted to meet him. And I said, I'm not gonna make, now I know why they wanted to meet him. You know, in case of anything, they would take him away from me, right? I said, I'm not gonna make you meet him because he's weak. If we ever get, he's gonna give up everybody. So why would I make him meet you? And then you're gonna blame me for introducing him to you. Strategy, right? They couldn't say no to that. They couldn't say no. And I said it in front of people. I said, I'm telling you, this guy is not gonna stand up. When I have a problem, he's my problem.

• 1:19:29Speaker 00

  I'll take care of it my way. But I'm not gonna introduce him to people that he can put in trouble. No way. And they couldn't argue with that. It's part of my strategy.

• 1:19:39Steven Bartlett?

  So when he snitched effectively, did they not wanna take care of him?

• 1:19:44Speaker 00

  Oh, absolutely. Yeah. They said, we'll handle it for you. You know, turn us, you know, let us know. They wanted him, they wanted him out of the picture. So they didn't want this to end. Cause they figured if he's gone, I can still keep this going.

• 1:19:59Steven Bartlett?

  How, how easy was that for them to order someone's murder? Because they, it sounds so matter of fact, like, oh, we'll take care of this.

• 1:20:08Speaker 00

  The boss had total, how hard was it for the boss to order a murder? And then have it executed?

• 1:20:14Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:15Speaker 00

  Wasn't hard at all. It was not hard at all. Especially it was with somebody within our life. It wasn't hard, unfortunately.

• 1:20:24Steven Bartlett?

  So the boss could just say, take care of him, and then someone would go and do it?

• 1:20:27Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 1:20:28Steven Bartlett?

  No questions asked?

• 1:20:29Speaker 00

  Boss at that point say, he's gonna go. They need to sign it to somebody, and then it's up to them. How they handle it.

• 1:20:37Steven Bartlett?

  What if they didn't handle it?

• 1:20:39Speaker 00

  They'd be in trouble. They gotta handle it.

• 1:20:41Steven Bartlett?

  Was there ever an instance you can recall where someone didn't handle it?

• 1:20:44Speaker 00

  Well, it could have been an aborted attempt. And if it was a legitimately aborted attempt, you know, you're normally not gonna be held responsible for that. But if you're given a job, you better get it done. Let's put it that way.

• 1:20:59Steven Bartlett?

  Or you're gonna be responsible?

• 1:21:01Speaker 00

  In some ways, yes, you could be. Especially if that person goes on to do something hurtful to everybody else.

• 1:21:08Steven Bartlett?

  Eventually you do get sent to prison, you take a plea deal.

• 1:21:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:21:12Steven Bartlett?

  What's your plea deal?

• 1:21:14Speaker 00

  I pled to, uh, it was a racketeering case, the underlying act was tax fraud. And um, two counts that I pled guilty to, racketeering, conspiracy, something. And ten year prison sentence, fifteen million dollars, fourteen point seven million dollars in restitution, five million in forfeitures. And um.

• 1:21:34Steven Bartlett?

  Did that leave you with any money?

• 1:21:36Speaker 00

  Well, yes, because in negotiating the plea, I was able to keep certain things and not. I said, listen, if I'm gonna take a plea, my wife's not gonna go to work. I gotta make sure my wife, my kid, they're all okay. So I'm gonna keep some of the money. You know, so uh, when you're negotiating a plea, my lawyer, he was able to at least give me enough. My wife never had to go to work when I was in jail.

• 1:22:02Steven Bartlett?

  Did they, I was wondering this because a lot of the things you described sound like they were done in cash.

• 1:22:08Speaker 00

  A lot of cash, no question, um, but there was a lot of wire transfers and money sent in different places. We had a lot, but not everybody paid. And you were selling to legitimate gas station owners, you know, they didn't pay you in cash all the time. And especially when you're selling big volume, there was a lot of wire transfers, a lot of wire activity.

• 1:22:28Steven Bartlett?

  What was the most cash you ever saw in person?

• 1:22:30Speaker 00

  Oh, gosh.

• 1:22:32Steven Bartlett?

  I think the most I've ever seen is like ten K. I just don't.

• 1:22:34Speaker 00

  Ten K?

• 1:22:35Steven Bartlett?

  Well, I've just never seen a lot of cash in my lifetime, we don't, I don't even have a wallet.

• 1:22:38Speaker 00

  You don't deal with cash, yeah.

• 1:22:39Steven Bartlett?

  I just have my phone, so.

• 1:22:41Speaker 00

  You know, probably forty, fifty million, around there.

• 1:22:45Steven Bartlett?

  In cash?

• 1:22:45Speaker 00

  In cash, yeah. Yeah.

• 1:22:48Steven Bartlett?

  You've seen forty or fifty million in cash?

• 1:22:50Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:51Steven Bartlett?

  When was that?

• 1:22:52Speaker 00

  Back in the uh, eighties, early eighties.

• 1:22:55Steven Bartlett?

  Was it just in a room or something?

• 1:22:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was in a room. Yeah.

• 1:22:59Steven Bartlett?

  How, how big does a room have to be to have forty or fifty?

• 1:23:02Speaker 00

  That'd be pretty big, cause gas station money is small bills.

• 1:23:06Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:06Speaker 00

  I mean, listen, it got to a point with the cash where I used to come home and I used to get the fives and ones and I used to give them to my wife. Say, give this to your brothers and sisters, cause I have no room for them, there's no place to put them. And I'd give her a couple of grand and say, yeah, just give it out. We'll keep the twenties and you know, the tens and. It was, you know, washing the money was an issue. I mean, I, once my wife went to the bank and I gave her, I don't know, thousands of dollars to deposit. And the banker said, why does your money always smell like gas? So my wife said, I'm not going to the bank anymore for you. She, and she didn't know I was doing anything wrong. I never discussed it with her, never told her anything. I said, hey, I'm in this business, I'm a wholesaler, we have a lot of cash. You know, you go to a gas station, they pay with cash.

• 1:23:51Speaker 00

  And I have as many credit cards as I have now, so. Uh, so it came to a point, I said, all right, I'll fix it. And I bought a refrigerator and I put baking soda in the refrigerator with the cash and that took the smell out. And she said, I never seen anything like that before. I said, well, you know, gas, nobody wants to smell gas, you know, I, but I made everything legitimate out of it. I never told her a thing that was going on, never.

• 1:24:14Steven Bartlett?

  Did you not, I always, I always think when I read stories like this, that if I was in that moment, I would live in a permanent state of fear that I might go to jail. So I'd take, I don't know, a couple of million and bury it somewhere.

• 1:24:27Steven Bartlett?

  You're nodding, is that what you did?

• 1:24:29Speaker 00

  Well, listen, I, I, you know, I was resourceful in that regard, but you know, your plans don't always work out the way you want them to. I'll tell you one thing that really hurt me bad. I hired a lawyer that had just come out of the government, the prosecution's office. He was, as a matter of fact, he was almost on one of my cases, but he wasn't, so there was no conflict. But he just came out of the Eastern District of New York, which was Brooklyn, where my cases were, most of them. And so I hired him. And I said, John, I need one thing from you. I want to know when I'm going to be arrested or locked up or indicted on this gasoline case. Cause this was after my partner became a snitch. And he said, I'll never forget, he said, don't worry about it, June of eighty six, that's when it's going to happen. You got time, right?

• 1:25:14Speaker 00

  And this was like the middle of eighty five. I said, great. I had got married in July of eighty-five, right? I said, great, I got time. I have my own plan. I was moving things around. But I was figuring I had seven, eight, nine months. Well, I got indicted in December of that year. And no bail. So they kind of derailed a lot of my plan and strategy. Because I got locked up six months earlier than I thought. And so that, that was, that was hurtful. I can tell you that. What was your plan? I was moving a lot of money around, quite honestly. Moving a lot of money around at different places and. Physical money or? Yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:56Speaker 00

  And money that I had put in certain places, I was taking it out and I was putting it so I, I said, I'll, I never have to worry about anything again. I'm gonna have to sit on this cash. Because another thing happened. My partner and I had a, a bank in Austria. And we were taking the federal tax money, nine cents. And we were just putting it in that bank and we want, we opened up a bank account. He had half the number. It was a numbered account. He had half the number, I had half the number. Neither one of us knew the other half, right? We just did it. I was, came up there. I said, let's make sure we have no temptation. It was more for him than for me, right? And we had about thirty-three million dollars in that account. When he became a snitch,

• 1:26:40Speaker 00

  I got ahold of his son, Larry Junior. His name was Larry. And I said, tell your father, I'll fight him in court. Don't give up the money. It's our money. It's for you, your mother. But don't give up the money. Whatever happens, let's, we'll worry about the court situation. Well, he testifies against me. He becomes an informant, goes to hold. He never gives up the money, never gives up the account. He testifies against me in a Giuliani case. I get acquitted. Jury didn't believe him, right? We destroyed him on the stand. So now the government in the Eastern District, the other side in Brooklyn, said, you're worthless. You couldn't get a conviction on Francis. You're worthless. We're throwing you out of the program. You're done. He gets scared. He says, wait a second, you know, there's more. He gives him the half of the number.

• 1:27:26Speaker 00

  The FBI goes to Austria, true story, goes to Austria and says, "It's mafia money. We have half the account number. We want it." Austria says, "I don't care what money it is. You come with the full account number, you're not getting anything." Tells the FBI, they didn't care. They wouldn't give it up. Austria, not Switzerland, Austria, right? So now, when I'm, I get indicted, and then negotiating the plea. Originally, they want to give me a hundred million dollar fine and 25 years in prison. That was when we were negotiating. So my lawyer comes to me, he says, "You're never gonna get the money." He's got the, "It's done. It's over. It's finished." He says, "Give me the account number. It'll help me negotiate the plea down."

• 1:28:10Speaker 00

  I give it to him. They negotiate the plea from 25 years and a hundred million, down to 10 years and 15 million with a 5 million forfeiture clause, right? So he did, it was very helpful in that regard. But we lost all that money. That was it, you know? It was meaningful. It wasn't everything, but it was meaningful. And when he cooperated, they gave him back 2.5 million dollars out of that. 33 million. So he profited a little bit out of it, at least.

• 1:28:40Steven Bartlett?

  Did you have anything buried in the ground?

• 1:28:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:28:44Steven Bartlett?

  Physically buried in the ground?

• 1:28:45Speaker 00

  In a safe, yes.

• 1:28:46Steven Bartlett?

  In a safe in the ground?

• 1:28:47Speaker 00

  Safes, I would say.

• 1:28:48Steven Bartlett?

  Safes in the ground?

• 1:28:49Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:28:51Steven Bartlett?

  Up until you were released?

• 1:28:54Speaker 00

  They were there. Let's put it that way.

• 1:28:56Steven Bartlett?

  No, because it's what I think anyone with a brain would do, but you just, if you don't know the timing of your, well, even if you didn't, I think if I was in that life, I'd live assuming that at some point, I was probably gonna have to do some time for something. So I'd bury it all over the place.

• 1:29:09Speaker 00

  I will tell you this. They, they believe that I have a lot of money stored someplace. To the point where they hired an investigator, who wrote a book about it, just to go and investigate and search. And this guy went around the world to different accounts that he thought I might have had money in. He wrote a book about it. They couldn't identify, they couldn't find it. But until today, I get plagued with that. They say, "We know you got it." 100%, "We know you got it. We're just wondering when you're gonna go get it."

• 1:29:38Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't respond to silly stuff like that, you know?

• 1:29:42Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think you're being followed and watched?

• 1:29:46Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:29:47Steven Bartlett?

  No?

• 1:29:47Speaker 00

  I mean, I think, uh...

• 1:29:51Speaker 00

  Let's put it this way, at any moment, you can get in their crosshairs again, and who knows? But I don't think they're worried or concerned about me at this moment. It's not to say that that, you know, that could not be a concern of theirs again. But I don't worry about that.

• 1:30:12Steven Bartlett?

  But you were just saying there that, that you said they are just waiting for me to go and get it. They think they're just waiting for you to go and get it.

• 1:30:18Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, retired agents have told me that.

• 1:30:21Steven Bartlett?

  Agents, okay, so not the mafia agents?

• 1:30:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, the mafia, they absolutely think I do. There's no question about that, I know, yeah. I've been a, there's guys that have told me that, you know.

• 1:30:32Steven Bartlett?

  Told you what?

• 1:30:33Speaker 00

  We know you have it, and when are you gonna go get it?

• 1:30:36Steven Bartlett?

  When they say go get it, do they mean New York?

• 1:30:39Speaker 00

  No, you know, wherever the money's buried or wherever the, wherever it is, you know, when is it gonna appear? I hear that, I've heard that consistently over the years.

• 1:30:47Steven Bartlett?

  Is it buried?

• 1:30:50Speaker 00

  Let's put it this way. If it's there, who knows if I'll ever get to use it again, you know? But we'll have to see.

• 1:30:58Steven Bartlett?

  You went to prison, then, you're in solitary confinement for a while while you're in prison. I can't imagine, I can't imagine, one of my recurring nightmares is going to prison. I think it's just like my deepest, darkest

• 1:31:10Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:31:11Steven Bartlett?

  fear, yeah, it is. It's specifically going to prison for something I didn't do is one of my like recurring nightmares that will happen every couple of months. And it's just the worst feeling in the world.

• 1:31:20Speaker 00

  That is a nightmare. I mean, to go for something you didn't do, for sure. Yeah, prison is, uh, listen, it's like anything else. You're gonna know how to navigate the system as best you can. And, you know, my father taught me again. He said, Mike, I'm gonna tell you three things that are gonna help you when you go to prison, because you're gonna go one day. He said, three words that are gonna go a long way. Please, thank you, excuse me.

• 1:31:45Speaker 00

  And he said, the reason for that, he said, all these guys in prison that never got respect on the street, they want it all in there. They wanna show their people, you know, that they're tough guys or whatever. You bunk into somebody, excuse me, you wanna cut somebody on the line, go to eat, whatever, I said, do you mind, you know, excuse me, please, if I can come in front of you. Don't ever just get in front of them, you know, and somebody hands you, hey, thank you, thank you very much. Be cordial, you know, and it really helped, because I saw guys try to throw their weight around. John Gotti tried to throw his weight around. Don't work in there. Guys are doing life in prison. They don't care who you are, what they got to lose, you know. But I never had a problem, never had a problem in prison. I treated people that way. And, yeah, I did spend twenty-nine

• 1:32:29Speaker 00

  months and seven days in solitary, and honestly, not easy. That was rough. I saw a lot of guys that not do well, and I don't, I don't demean them for it, you know, lights went out sometimes, you heard a lot of things, I seen a lot of things in there, guys couldn't deal with it for extended times. It's rough, it's, it's, I'm dead set against it for young people. I think it's a form of torture, really, really hurt them emotionally. And I'm against it, you know, unless somebody's such a danger to themselves or a danger to others, you know, I'm dead set against it, but I got through it.

• 1:33:04Steven Bartlett?

  Why were you sent to solitary?

• 1:33:06Speaker 00

  They were upset with me, you know, when, when I wouldn't cooperate to the level that they wanted me to, especially in one big case that they tried to get me to take the stand against a friend of mine, and I refused. And within a few days, I was back in, on a parole violation, they locked me up and sent me right to the hole. And I was in solitary the whole time, getting mad, and just getting even with me.

• 1:33:28Steven Bartlett?

  Twenty-nine months and seven days?

• 1:33:32Speaker 00

  And seven days, yeah.

• 1:33:32Steven Bartlett?

  In a row, or?

• 1:33:34Speaker 00

  Yes, it was, I did, I did eleven months in one place, and then they moved me, it took about two days, and then put me in another place, and I finished it up.

• 1:33:43Steven Bartlett?

  When you say that you heard grown men in there breaking, what, what do you, what do you mean?

• 1:33:50Speaker 00

  You know, banging heads against the bars, and just, just some other disgusting things you don't wanna hear. I mean, you know.

• 1:33:58Speaker 00

  Damaging themselves, you know, hurting themselves just to get out of the hole. You know, I'd see guys that that did things to themselves to get out of to get out of the hole in jail. And get sent to the prison so they didn't have to stay in that environment anymore. It was just it was just bad. That that's nightmare stuff. It really is.

• 1:34:19Steven Bartlett?

  You um, you're quite uncomfortable talking about it, aren't you?

• 1:34:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, because, you know, it's kind of demeaning to to and I'm not trying to come off that way. I'm not say, well, I was a tough guy. I was able to handle it. I was by the grace of God, I was able to handle it. I had my days and my nights where, you know, you say, God, it's one long day. It never ends, you know? And I mean, I lost a lot of weight in there. I was down to I'm I'm like one ninety something now. I was one eighty one sixty six when I got out of there. Because I wouldn't eat, you know, the food that they gave us. I got uh uh. Tomain poisoning a couple of times. I said, hey, give me cereal, give me bananas and give me cup of soup. That's all I want to eat. I don't want to eat anything else. And so I lived on that for quite some time. And, you know, I don't want to make it sound that, I mean, it wasn't uh.

• 1:35:08Speaker 00

  You know, some of these places where, you know, you don't have a toilet or anything else. I mean, I'm sure there's places around the world that are a lot worse, could be. But it's just the solitary. It wasn't so much the conditions. You know what I mean? We had a sink. We had a toilet. You had your bed with a little mattress. Um, so that was it was just it was just being solitary. That's hard.

• 1:35:33Steven Bartlett?

  Did you? Did you find yourself losing your own mind in there? And whatever that might mean?

• 1:35:39Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:35:42Speaker 00

  No, Steve, honestly, and I was pretty I I think I have a fairly strong constitution. There's something in me and that's that's God given. You know, I can't, I can't say, I don't know how you don't. Do you acquire something like that or it's just who you are? I don't know. But um. I was able to deal with it. I mean, I had my bad nights in there, you know, and you just. Fortunately, I had a Sony Walkman. Music was, you have no idea. Music was so soothing. I remember one Christmas Eve. I had just gotten off the phone with my wife and it was devastating. The whole family was there and it was just. And I just put my Walkman on and it just lifted me out of there for a minute. Just the music, you forget stuff.

• 1:36:26Speaker 00

  You know, um, and you know, I got into my Bible during that time and I was listening to a pastor that I had not known and never met him. His name was Greg Laurie. He's Harvest Crusade, huge pastor here now, very dear friend of mine now. Uh, but his words were so uplifting. I looked forward to listening to him every morning. He had morning radio shows. And so things like that meant a lot. And then getting to a phone. Everything is about the phone and having, uh, you know, uh, contact with your family. So. The thing that worried me, when my dad went away at that time, he got one three-minute phone call a month.

• 1:37:09Speaker 00

  And one visit a month, one eight-hour visit. That was it. So he lost touch with the family. And him and my mother drifted apart. My sister hardly knew him, you know, my, he, he, you just can't, if you're not in touch with people, it just naturally happens. So when I went away, my fear was that was gonna happen to me and my wife. So. I did all I wanted. I told her, I told her, you wanna lock me up, lock me up. Just give me my phone calls and give me my visits. I don't care what you do. I'll take everything else. But don't take my phone call, don't take my visit. I'm not gonna do anything that will cause you to do that. So don't do it. That's all I cared about. Cause I wanted to maintain a relationship with my wife. And she stuck by you? She did. She did.

• 1:37:53Speaker 00

  Eight years that I did, she stuck by me. And she was young. She had a great mom, good Christian mom who held her up. Our church at that time, Westwood Hills Christian Church. They rallied around my wife and me and my kids. We had little babies back then. Um, and she stood up. When I went, I, I did five years. I was home for 13 months. Very difficult 13 months. I was dev, a contract on my life. People wanted to kill me and government was all over me to become a witness and I had a very tough time. I violated my parole. And when I went in, the feds told her, you're never gonna see your husband free again. We're indicting him on another case. We violated his parole. He's done. You may as well pack it up.

• 1:38:39Speaker 00

  And she had a breakdown on me at that point. She probably couldn't see me for about six or seven weeks. She didn't come to visit.

• 1:38:46Steven Bartlett?

  Can you imagine what life would have been like in solitary if she had decided that it was all too much for her?

• 1:38:53Speaker 00

  I would have been bitter and, and resentful. I, I don't think I would have come out of there the same.

• 1:39:01Speaker 00

  I really don't.

• 1:39:04Speaker 00

  Cause she meant that much to me. Still does, but cause I did everything for her, basically, you know? I mean, she was the reason why I left that life. Even though I knew it was a bad life.

• 1:39:17Speaker 00

  I wouldn't have left. I was so indoctrinated. Steve, when I walked into that room that night, I thought I was gonna die. And yet I walked into the room. Wow, what a hero. It wasn't heroic. It was robotic. I was so much a part of that life. I had seen so much. I said, well, it's my turn. It's my turn. It wasn't heroic. I was scared out of my mind. My knees were weak. My heart was thumping out of my chest. You know, and I still didn't want them to realize that I was that scared, but I was really scared.

• 1:39:45Steven Bartlett?

  Which room?

• 1:39:46Speaker 00

  The room that your father- The night they walked me, I told you, they, they walked me into that room and I didn't know if I was gonna, you know? That's one of the horrors of that life. The night my dad betrayed me.

• 1:39:55Steven Bartlett?

  Your, your dad, you walked into that room that night with the bosses there and a lot of other people there and your dad there?

• 1:40:01Speaker 00

  He wasn't there.

• 1:40:02Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, he wasn't-

• 1:40:02Speaker 00

  He had left already.

• 1:40:03Steven Bartlett?

  He had left already?

• 1:40:04Speaker 00

  Yes. They, they talked to us, uh, separately.

• 1:40:09Steven Bartlett?

  And when they had a conversation with him, had they told him that you were gonna, there was gonna be a contract on you?

• 1:40:15Speaker 00

  They didn't tell him that, but they were fishing to find out if there was a reason for it to happen. In other words, if I believe, now this is my perception of that night. There was two reasons they walked me in, one of two. Number one, trying to scare me to let me know, you may be making all this money. You may have this big crew. That article came out in the paper, but we're the boss. You try to make a move, you're gonna die. That's what I think. It was either that or they really believed I was doing something wrong and they were gonna try to take over the business. Now, again, remember, one of the safeguards, I never let him meet that guy. And I never let him, my crew was my crew.

• 1:41:00Speaker 00

  I didn't bring them around. They were my guys. And when we fell, nobody, no made guy fell with us. It was only my crew. So I protected them in that way. But in another way, I was safeguarding my business. So were they gonna look for an excuse that night to take me out? Very possibly.

• 1:41:20Steven Bartlett?

  And you think your dad might have been aware of that?

• 1:41:22Speaker 00

  Yes. In a way, yes, because, and again, I've struggled with this too. Okay, Dad, you betrayed me that night. You threw me under the bus. He didn't say, well, my son did this wrong. My son did that. He didn't do that. He just said, I don't know.

• 1:41:39Speaker 00

  I can't tell you. I don't know. And that was damaging. He didn't stand up for me.

• 1:41:45Steven Bartlett?

  How'd you know he didn't?

• 1:41:46Speaker 00

  Jimmy told me.

• 1:41:49Speaker 00

  And I approached my father two years later. He denied it. I said, Dad, I know you did it. It was confirmed. I know you did. I know what you did. But it's okay, I love you. It's all right. I get it. I understand the life. I get it.

• 1:42:00Steven Bartlett?

  What did Jimmy tell you?

• 1:42:01Speaker 00

  Told me your father threw you under the bus. He didn't help you one bit. It's his exact words. He didn't help you one bit. He hurt you in there tonight.

• 1:42:10Speaker 00

  And you know, it was devastating.

• 1:42:14Speaker 00

  Have you forgiven him for that? Absolutely forgave him. You know, something happens to you in that, in that life, you know, it's, it's like what's right is wrong, what's wrong is right. You justify certain things, but I understood because that night, I mean, what kind of insanity to walk into a room when you think you're gonna get killed, or you think you might get, that's your perception, whether it's real or not, that's your perception. People say, why didn't you cut and run? Robotic. Okay, I was so consumed by the life, so, this was me, okay, I'm gonna die tonight. Scared, of course I was scared. No, I'm not ashamed of it, not at all.

• 1:42:58Speaker 00

  I mean, I knew that door opened, I almost fainted, probably, I don't know. Because I know it had set up, you know, I walk in, it would have been over quick. So when that door was gonna open, I almost fainted. But I can tell you this, what I believe now, as a person of faith, I strongly believe this, that the way my life has turned out now, two things, that bond between my dad and me had to be broken, it had to be broken. And I had to realize in my life that I could face death, if I had to. Because when I walked away from that life, and I didn't know I was gonna walk away, but when I walked away from that life, you know, contract on my life, my boss was very upset with me. He took it very personal, and he was a tough guy. He was an old time, real tough guy.

• 1:43:43Speaker 00

  And he took it very personal.

• 1:43:46Speaker 00

  You know, walk away, you don't walk away from this life, we're not allowed to do that. My dad disowned me for a number of years. Till we patched it up, when they realized I wasn't gonna be testifying against everybody, because they thought I was, okay, this is what he's gonna do.

• 1:44:02Speaker 00

  I wasn't interested in that. They thought I was gonna go into the witness protection program and start hurting guys left and right. That's not what I was gonna do. Never would have done that. Not in a chance. But they didn't know, because when guys walk away, that's what they do.

• 1:44:16Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think your dad loved you?

• 1:44:18Speaker 00

  I know he loved me, no question. I tell you what the problem with my dad was. His legend in that life meant everything to him.

• 1:44:27Steven Bartlett?

  I just can't square the fact that he would allow you to talk into that room and not defend you with the risk of you dying. And at the same time, he loves you.

• 1:44:38Speaker 00

  I like to think that maybe he didn't perceive it that way. There was some other, there was some other things playing. You know, this is like, it was like, it's Shakespearean in a way. My mother, who I loved, very difficult woman. I can tell you this. She had her issues for whatever reason, but, you know, I think my mother liked to be my father's wife for a time. I mean, she got a lot of attention, right? When I became prominent in that life, a lot of the tension was not on her. And I think she, she said some things to my dad, you know, that kinda maybe got in his head a little bit about me. Maybe, I hate to say this, it doesn't sound right now, I don't want people to perceive

• 1:45:23Speaker 00

  that. Maybe there was a little jealousy or envy there, I don't know, Steve. You know, I've never talked like this before, and I don't like to do it because it puts my father in a very bad light. But sometimes you can play on somebody's mind so much, you know, especially a woman that he loved. And I know my mother loved me too, figure this one out. There's no question my mother loved me, but I can't explain what took, what dynamic they had going on within them. I don't know. But maybe he, there was some resentment there a little bit, even though face to face, I never experienced that with him. But then this happens in that room, I don't know. I don't think, if my dad thought I was gonna get killed that night, I don't think he would have gone through it.

• 1:46:07Speaker 00

  Maybe he, maybe he was in on it, you know, I don't know. Maybe he said, hey, let's flush my son out, I don't know. I don't know. And Jimmy wouldn't have known that, the guy that drove me, so I don't know.

• 1:46:19Steven Bartlett?

  How do you, how do you square all of this? Because one of the things I think all human beings love, need, regardless of how tough they are, is love.

• 1:46:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:46:31Speaker 00

  Absolutely, and.

• 1:46:34Speaker 00

  Listen, I, I got. My relationship with my dad was never the same, especially after I walked away.

• 1:46:43Speaker 00

  Uh, you know, when, when, we didn't speak for about ten years.

• 1:46:48Speaker 00

  And then when I got out of prison and he was on parole and we realized, he realized I wasn't hurting anybody. He said, I wanna see you. Called me. I said, okay. He said, I'm gonna meet you in such and such a place. I said, nope, I'll meet you at the house, your house. Not going anywhere to meet you, Dad. Almost. Little mistrust there, I'm gonna be honest. You know? And so I go to see him at, uh, I go to his house, five thirty in the morning, cause I was on parole, had a record at that time. I didn't know if I was allowed to see him. You know, another violation. He was on parole, I was on parole. Why did you go to his house? I knew my mom was there and I'm in his house, so I don't have to worry about it. I wasn't gonna go anywhere where somebody else could have been there.

• 1:47:30Speaker 00

  You know, and I knew my dad would never do anything in his house. That's my feeling. So I seen him, it was five thirty in the morning, I opened the door, and he's standing there, arms folded, and he looks at me. And his first words to me. He said, if you would have listened to me, you would have been the boss of the Colombo family.

• 1:47:49Speaker 00

  I looked at him, I said, Dad, are you in the Twilight Zone or something? I said, I serve a different master right now. And he looked at me and he said, do you mean his Bible stuff is for real with you? Cause I had turned Christian at that point. I said, yeah, it's for real. He said, okay, let's talk. And that's kinda how we broke the ice, and we spent three hours talking and going over a lot of the stuff that happened. And, you know, some of the a- anger of I had in me, I expressed to him. You know, and some of the things he said, you know, he, what he said to me.

• 1:48:23Speaker 00

  And I said to him, I said, I'm not going back in that life. I said, Dad, you see, I wasn't here to hurt anybody, but if there's things that you don't want to express, just don't tell me. I don't want to hear it. I mean, it was a very open, hard conversation that he and I had, but it was good because we came to an agreement in terms after that. You know, one of the things, Steve, that bother you, you know, the mob genre on social media is like people talk and they say things. They don't know what really went on with me and my dad and our personal conversations and all of that. And, you know, well, you know, you never want to see your dad. When your dad died, you didn't go to, you didn't go to his funeral. And I didn't go. And I didn't go for a reason because number one, I knew who else was going to be there. I'm not going to go there and be the center of

• 1:49:07Speaker 00

  attention or maybe have something happen at my dad's funeral if somebody wants to make remarks for me and then we're gonna, it's gonna be a bad time in there. I respected my dad enough to do that. I went to visit him privately. I didn't need to make a show or a display out of it. And actually, people says to me, Michael, you're better off not going, you know, you don't, who knows if there's going to be a scene because I'd walked away from that life. Other guys might have been friends of my father might have showed up and it could have been confrontational. I don't need to do that. I'm not looking to put up, put on a show, you know, so, but guys make remarks, oh, you didn't care about your father. They don't know. They don't know what went on personally between us. It's none of their business. This is probably the most open conversation I've ever had about it publicly. Maybe at all. I don't talk about it.

• 1:49:51Steven Bartlett?

  What are the stories that you're unable to tell about your time in the mafia? You don't have to tell me the stories because you're unable to tell them, but what are the nature of those stories that you're unable to tell? Because you do a lot of interviews these days, you're on podcasts, you speak now.

• 1:50:06Speaker 00

  You know, I mean, look, it's like I said, there was a lot of guys that I knew that were gone, you know, just not there. And, you know, I'll give you an example. It was a guy that was around my dad, then became around me. I was his captain and, and he got involved in a drug deal.

• 1:50:24Speaker 00

  With with somebody that was higher up. So he came to me, I was at a funeral, Paula, and he came to me and he told me what happened. And I got mad. I said, Tony, what is the matter with you? You've been around all this. How the heck did you let this happen? I said, don't worry about it. I'm gonna straighten it out. And we were at a funeral of a guy that got killed. And he said to me, you couldn't straight that one out, Michael. I said, don't compare the two situations. This was something else. I said, don't worry about it. I'm gonna handle it. He said, Mike, they're not gonna walk me into a room. I said, it's not gonna happen. Relax. I promise you, I'll take care of it. You've been around, you're a good soldier. You've been around a long time. You got a lot of respect. Don't worry about it. You made a stupid mistake. We'll clear it.

• 1:51:09Speaker 00

  I get on my plane. I go to Florida. My movie was being made down there. And I go to Florida. I get off the plane. One of my guys calls me up. He says, Mike, you're not gonna believe this. I said, what? He said, Tony went into a phone booth and blew his brains out. He was an old timer, so afraid. He said, I'm not going out. Nobody's gonna take me out, walk me into a room. And he did it himself. So you see things like that in that life and it it's like, you know. I don't know what to say, you know?

• 1:51:40Steven Bartlett?

  How are you?

• 1:51:42Speaker 00

  I'm good.

• 1:51:44Steven Bartlett?

  You know, if I if your wife is in a room over there, in the green room over there in another building. Um, if I were to ask her, if I was, if I were to say, what what are the type of type of things that Michael struggles with? What would she say to me?

• 1:51:58Speaker 00

  Well.

• 1:51:59Steven Bartlett?

  Because if you ask my girlfriend that, you'd get a laundry list, so I imagine your wife would say.

• 1:52:04Speaker 00

  You know. What do I struggle with in the family? You know, it's funny. I'm on the street. I got all this stuff going for me. In my house, I'm just dad. You know, sometimes I get mad. My kids take advantage of me. I said, I go out of my way for all of you. You don't do anything in return. You know, you guys don't appreciate anything. I guess I still have that, you know. I'm a pretty giving guy, Steve. You know, I give you everything I can possibly give you. Just, you don't have to give it back to me. Just treat me right. Respect is a lot. If I feel I'm being disrespected, I don't like it. Even tell my wife sometimes, she struggles with, you know, the littlest thing. He thinks it's disrespect. Can't help it, that's my nature. You know, I don't like that. I have a guy now, you know, trying to call him up. He doesn't call you back for two, three days.

• 1:52:49Speaker 00

  That's disrespectful. You know, it's, I don't like stuff like that. I struggle with it because I see a lot of it around, around. Um, you know, I don't know what else.

• 1:53:00Steven Bartlett?

  When people come to you and they ask, because you've been a speaker for some time now.

• 1:53:02Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:53:03Steven Bartlett?

  About two decades, almost.

• 1:53:04Speaker 00

  Twenty five years.

• 1:53:05Steven Bartlett?

  Twenty five years. What are the key things that people approach you to speak about based on your experience?

• 1:53:11Speaker 00

  Well, it's a number. I mean, look, everybody wants to hear the mob story. There's intrigue with the mob story worldwide. And I never realized that when I was in the life until I became what I am now. And all over the world, people are fascinated with more than any other criminal group. They're fascinated with the mafia. Media, why, of course, all the great movies, you know, Al Capone, John Gotti, Bigger Than Life, all that stuff. So there's a fascination with this life. United Kingdom, you know, two tours there, people, they don't, because you don't have a mafia there. You're lucky in that regard. But, so people want to hear that. But then they want to hear how that life has impacted me, how I've been able to get out of it and still, you know, succeed in a way, in their perception, I'm succeeding.

• 1:53:54Speaker 00

  And, um, but you'll be surprised with this, Steve. Whenever I open it up for a Q and A, which is often, you think you're going to hear all the mob questions. You don't. You know what it is? How did your wife react with you after being away so long? How did you patch that up? How did your kids react to you? How were you able to adjust? You know, did you feel you were doing the right thing? How is it struggles? People, and I'm saying to myself, these people might be going through these same things in a different way. And wow, I came out of a tough situation. How did I make it? Can they apply it to their own lives? People are struggling, you know? I, I see it more and more and more. If I wanted to spend my time mentoring to people all the time,

• 1:54:36Speaker 00

  I would, I would be overloaded just from social media and emails and texts that I get. And it's, it's a good feeling, don't get me wrong, that people see something in me that maybe can be helpful to them. And I pursue it as much as I can. As a matter of fact, I'm starting a platform now. I think it's come to that point, you know, God has put it on my heart that maybe it's time to, you know, offer these people something more than just a conversation. And so we are starting a platform where we can create this kind of family or community where not only I can be of assistance, but my team can, and people can start to, you know, uh, help one another.

• 1:55:13Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:55:13Speaker 00

  I think we need that more than ever.

• 1:55:15Steven Bartlett?

  We'll link that below if you, if you are able to send me a link to that so people can check it out. I, I understand why there is intrigue. I think a lot of people will be intrigued because the mafia, you know, I, as I said to you before we started recording, I haven't watched mafia movies. I don't really know anything about the mafia. I've been enlightened today. It's quite fascinating. I feel like I'm gonna go watch all of the movies. But the thing that I found so compelling is just what I can learn from it. Because I think everybody that's lived a anomalous life, where they've done something different and they've walked a different path, has something different that they've learned. That is also a fundamental truth, i.e. regardless of what you've done, um, whatever divergent path you've taken, you've learned a bunch of fundamental principles of how the world works, how people work, how to navigate, how to survive.

• 1:55:58Steven Bartlett?

  Um, and some of those principles are super applicable to the, my day to day life. I've learned so much about even business, like the concept of having a sit down. You know, we don't, in business, we, there's not enough candor, there's not enough honesty, there's not enough frank conversations in that regard. There's lots of emails, brainstorms, this person's on annual leave, we're gonna talk on blah, blah, blah. But there's not enough of that frankness. So those are the things that I really wanted to understand. If you've got any more of those for me in terms of how, cause you're a businessman now and you're an entrepreneur in this season of life. And some of those principles that you learned from the mafia days must still be applicable.

• 1:56:32Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Well, I'll tell you this, and I'm sure this is a principle that you follow. You don't look like a micromanager to me.

• 1:56:37Steven Bartlett?

  Well, I don't know.

• 1:56:38Speaker 00

  Are you?

• 1:56:39Steven Bartlett?

  Well, I don't know. I don't know. Do you know what the honest answer is?

• 1:56:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:56:43Steven Bartlett?

  The honest answer is, I think, and you can ask my team privately. I'm, actually, Jack, come over here.

• 1:56:50Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, because I genuinely want to know the truth. I I want to know the actual truth. Okay, Jack, hundred percent honesty.

• 1:56:57Speaker 03

  I think in some areas you can be a manager, but I think other areas you're not. And then I think when you need to be, you are.

• 1:57:08Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I think I think I am and I'm not. And it's and it's a real dichotomy, i.e. And again, this is just my opinion. I don't know if I've got the self-awareness for this to be accurate, but. I, okay, I think that I'm obsessed with the smallest details of a system. And I like to understand the smallest details of a system to some degree. And I think when I get to a point where I realize, honestly, this is what it is, that

• 1:57:34Steven Bartlett?

  whoever's running that system can do it way better than me. I resign to it. And I don't I don't feel like I'm I'm at all necessary. And so this, for example, with this production, there's nothing I can tell Jack about cameras.

• 1:57:46Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:57:47Steven Bartlett?

  There's zero. I don't know anything about these bloody cameras or about what he does in post-production.

• 1:57:51Speaker 00

  You want to know anything about it?

• 1:57:52Steven Bartlett?

  No.

• 1:57:53Speaker 00

  Good.

• 1:57:53Steven Bartlett?

  Because because he's because I trust him. But there are instances with other team members or within other businesses that I run where I don't have the trust yet. And I've always said to my team, and people don't like this, but you can't fake trust. Trust for me is evidence. So like, like, what how do I describe this? If I told you to believe that I was the spaghetti monster, no matter how much you wanted to will that in, I said, I'm going to give you a million dollars in cash right now if you believe I'm the spaghetti monster. All of the evidence you have says that I'm a human being. I've got two arms, two legs. So all you could do is lie.

• 1:58:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:58:25Steven Bartlett?

  But you wouldn't actually believe it. And I think trust is the same. Like, it's it's evidence you do or don't have. I have so much evidence that Jack doesn't need to be told anything about production because he's, you know. So that's kind of how my how my system works. So on one end, I think a lot of my team, and I've heard them say in interviews before that I've given them immense freedom in certain areas. And then in other elements, I think I am, I can be maniacal about detail and be in the weeds.

• 1:58:49Speaker 00

  Well, my motto, and it's worked for me most of the time, when I'm when I'm really paying attention. I'm older now. I used to be a little bit different when I was younger. I was more hands on. But I came to a conclusion early on. You can't micromanage because when you micromanage, you're taking yourself away from your best talent and the thing that you can contribute to the best in your business. And so I always said, do what I do best, delegate the rest. And then hopefully you have the talent to motivate the people and get the most out of them. So it's a double sword, double edged sword. Do what you do best, delegate the rest, but motivate them to the point where you're getting the most out of them. That's critical. That's critical because you can't do everything well, you know.

• 1:59:34Steven Bartlett?

  No, I know, yeah.

• 1:59:35Speaker 00

  You know, and it's, you know, and I always say this too. I tell people, get your personal life in order because normally your business is going to be a reflection of your personal life in some way, shape or form. And you can't do both. You can't do one well and do the other not good because they're going to affect one another. So have your personal life in order, be a reflection, your business will be a reflection of your personal life. And if you can do that, do what you do best, delegate the rest, give your personal life in order, your business will be a reflection of that and you're going to do okay. I believe it.

• 2:00:10Steven Bartlett?

  Michael, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for. And the question that's been left for you is, what is one event, conversation or experience that was your aha light bulb that influenced or changed your life?

• 2:00:34Speaker 00

  Look, I think the, unfortunately, you know, these are defining moments. And in the course of my life, there's been more than one, but really two. I'll boil it down to two. One was with my dad and during that time when he proposed me into the life. And the second one was with the pastor of the church that married me that I hardly knew. And when we were gonna get married in that church, I was with him and my wife. And for some reason, and I was still a mob guy at that point. I told my wife, I said, I want you to leave. I want to speak to Dr. Taylor, Dr. Myron Taylor.

• 2:01:16Speaker 00

  He was, he was a pastor. And I sat down with him and I said, Doc, you don't know my background. I said, but I've done a lot of bad things in my life. I was part of a rough lifestyle. My wife is telling me, you know, I could be forgiven for these things. Is it possible? And he really opened up to me and it was a very inspiring conversation. Cause I really, he was such a good man. I mean, I got to know and love this man. He's passed on now, but he married us, but um. And he was the one that filled me with some hope that, yeah, well, maybe, maybe I can turn this around. Cause up till then, I didn't know.

• 2:01:58Speaker 00

  You know, my wife was a Christian and I was marrying her and I respected her for her faith, but I wasn't buying into it. You know, okay, you know. And my mother-in-law, a strong woman of faith, but I wasn't buying into it myself. Cause I said, they don't know who I am. And then I had this conversation and it planted the seeds to say, you know what? Maybe there is something else. Maybe I can undo some of the things, not undo them, but change some of the things. Change the path of my life. And it, and it was a short, kind of maybe half hour, the most, but meaningful.

• 2:02:33Steven Bartlett?

  And that's ultimately where your life began to change?

• 2:02:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:02:37Steven Bartlett?

  You found God?

• 2:02:38Speaker 00

  Yes. Or he found me, one of the two. I don't know.

• 2:02:43Steven Bartlett?

  What is your closing message, Michael?

• 2:02:46Speaker 00

  You know, it's, it's a message, um, hopefully of encouragement and hope, you know, to people that are struggling and facing challenges in their life and. You know, you don't always be defeated by your past. And you're not always defined by your past. You can change that in many cases, not in every case, but in many cases. And I think I'm an example of that.

• 2:03:11Speaker 00

  And it's been inspiring to people and it's extremely rewarding to me to know that I've been able to turn it around to a point where it's been a positive influence on people. So I'd like people to know that. That's, that's what motivates me to continue to speaking. Not about, you know, it's about the way people react. And you see that there's hope. It's the emails, the texts, the messages. Hey, you've inspired me. You know, you've, you've given me hope. And I want people to know that. You know, you're not defined by your past all the time and you can make changes in your life.

• 2:03:46Steven Bartlett?

  I mean, that's certainly one of the very inspiring messages you leave me with is just this idea that

• 2:03:53Steven Bartlett?

  in all of our lives, it's going to come in seasons. And we're able and we have the permission to change with the seasons. We don't have to be fixed to an identity or to a past or to an old job title or to a group of people we used to associate with at any time we can make the decision, although it's not going to be fast, to become who we always were, I guess. You know, I, I started this conversation asking you who you were.

• 2:04:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:04:19Steven Bartlett?

  I, I kind of suspect you were, you're the same person you always were fundamentally. But circumstances changed, beliefs have changed. Your, who you're accountable has to, has changed.

• 2:04:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:04:31Steven Bartlett?

  Your values have become refined, you know, and all these things. But it's at the end of the day, it's the same human being, but with a different sense, sense of principles and purpose in their life. And I look back at my life and it's the same. I haven't always been great. I haven't always done good things. There were tough parts where I did things that I'm not proud of and probably wouldn't say on camera too much, but

• 2:04:52Steven Bartlett?

  I think that's really important. I think the, the best thing for humanity is that people have a chance to evolve and can be forgiven and move on. And they're, they're judged for how they show up today. Your book is incredibly inspiring. It's also incredibly fascinating. Mafia Democracy by yourself. And the foreword on here is from Rudy Giuliani, which I thought was hilarious because I know that he was an enemy for much of your career.

• 2:05:13Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:05:13Steven Bartlett?

  And he was trying to destroy you, give you a hundred year sentence. He was instrumental in imposing some of the laws that shut down the mafia's heyday as well. And thank you for your honesty, because although I know it's not always easy to recount certain memories from certain chapters of our life, in doing so, you enlighten us to the true nature of what it is to be a human and the complexities of what it is to be a human and all the forces that are in play and all of us at all of the time. And that's inspiring, but it's also liberating, because even though we've walked very different lives, you know, there's so many similarities and so many lessons that I've learned from you. So, thank you, Michael. I appreciate you.

• 2:05:49Speaker 00

  Well, I appreciate that. And I want to tell you, I'm very inspired by you. You know, like I said, I'm very impressed when somebody at a young age has it together, works hard, and reaches the level that you've reached at a young age. I mean, it's very inspiring. We need, you know, I hope you continue to be, you know, an example of somebody that can just really put their head to the grind and make it. And I've read up on you, and I know that's what you've done. You've created a great, great business here, and just keep going.

• 2:06:18Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you, Michael.

• 2:06:18Speaker 00

  Okay, you got it.