There are many commenters on this subreddit who say he's still a "grifter" and that he's just making money off his crimes, just differently, etc.
However, my take is different. The man was tried, convicted, served his time (8 years), and since then has not re-offended. This in and of itself is an impressive change for a career criminal. Most people in his line of work end up turning back to the life of crime, and sometimes escalating the severity of their delinquent behavior. He's raised 7 children and has had a successful marriage as well.
In addition to this, Michael has gone around doing his best to educate youth about why they shouldn't turn to a life of crime, etc. Yes, he gets paid to speak and doesn't do it for free, but it's a legitimate form of income. He's not defrauding the elderly, running insurance scams, or some other scam. He's well within the bounds of the law and is making an honest buck.
Additionally, I find that his interviews with Valuetainment and also the videos he posts on his YouTube channel are highly informative and have a treasure trove of information for those of us who are interested in the history of organized crime. As the phrase goes, "those who ignore history, are doomed to repeat it."
Also, I appreciate the fact that he is critical of his own past behavior. While people like to say "he always talks about the gasoline scam," he never talks about it like it's something he would want to do again. He just explains from an objective standpoint, how the scam worked. Over and above that he's emphasized that the Mafia life is not "normal" by any means, and actively decries the kind of bad things the Mafia did back in the day.
All in all, that's my two cents, take it or leave it. Same could be said of Michael Franzese. He says his viewpoint, and at the end of the day we're free to disregard it. However, I don't think it's fair to keep kicking him after he's already paid his debt to society.
Sammy Gravano on the other hand...
Literally, they broke the 1# rule in the Mafia. There's no walking away from that life, and yet, they somehow walk away alive for so long
Michael Franzese: There was no rivalry between the Italian-Americans and the Blacks
Meanwhile Tony Sirico: We were fighting [...]Blacks
I know who I'd rather believe, lol
claims that Livia Soprano is based on his mom.
Franzese, former Colombo capo, and now evangelical Christian motivational speaker, who prides himself on never co-operating, and glorifying the fact that he never sold drugs while operating a massive gas tax scam, claims that David Chase called him up in the mid-90s to be a consultant for The Sopranos. Despite his refusal, Chase somehow cribbed the idea off him. This is the show that Franzese says with full conviction is the greatest show of all time, despite the fact that he then says he only watched S1, most of S2, bits and pieces of 3-6, and the ending.
Why does this, of all things, piss me off, when this is a literal murderer making the claim?
It's because it's such obviously verifiable bullshit. He was banged up on fraud charges, never murder, so of couse he's not going to confess on camera to a crime that has no statute of limitations. His other lies serve a purpose, like his evangelical hustle and book tours. That and his rambling videos where he repeats the same thing over and over, then interrupts himself to repeat himself again. Life as a mobster? 16 minutes of "I drove ta Brooklyn and I sat in a social club and, uh did what my capo and the boss wanted me to do. Sometimes I did other things.'.
Some of the rest is sanitizing his own history to convince himself- he had to drop out of pre-med at Hofstra which he was totally not flunking because Bobby Kennedy hated his dad Sonny and framed him for the one murder he never did, and a life of crime was the only way. Also LCN took murder very seriously and never dealt drugs and there were only a few bad apples.
But the Livia thing? Why bother lying about that, there is zero gained.
The hustle never stops for one of those guys.
Anyway, I'm $4 a pound...
Eugene couldn't go down to Florida with his family and retire like he's in the Navy but you got this YouTube star banking on his stories of life in the Mafia
I'm just saying Sammy didn't seem like a tough guy, but a bitch.
My personal theory on why the Colombos didnβt have him killed.
Persico and possibly his dad were likely so damn focused on eliminating the Orena faction that they more or less forgot about Michael. Likely they just told him or implied to him that if he never came back to New York heβd be left alone. Feel free to disagree.
Michael Franzese constantly talks about how he was a pre-med student before going into the mob. But how far did he get in college? Did he get an associate's, bachelor's, or did he ever actually start med school but never finished?
Seriously hilarious how mad he is at Michael. He calls Sonny Franzese Michael's stepfather based on a rumor. Michael tells him according to his mother (the only person who REALLY knows) that Sonny is his biological father, Sammy goes "I heard he isn't."
Sammy says Michael got made as a favor to Sonny. Michael says to Sammy this isn't true. Sammy goes on to say "that's what I heard."
Michael says he brought in three Russians who couldn't get licensed for the gas business and that Iorizzo is the one who came up with the scheme. Sammy who wasn't even involved says he heard the Russians created it.
Now I understand why Michael blew up at Sammy in the post sitdown. Sammy thinks he knows every damn thing in the world because he's heard X or Y. He's even gonna tell Michael about his own family, criminal records, what Michael did or didn't do, despite admitting he didn't know Michael all that well.
I don't wanna play favorites but the insecurity stemming from Sammy is so glaring I almost laugh. To him, Cosa Nostra was everything and he turned into the biggest snitch in mob history. That Michael, a well-off kid who didn't care all that much about the mob, made more money than he did and got out without having the reputation as the biggest rat in the mafia obviously rubs him the wrong way.
Michael Franzese has 7 children. I know that a couple them are boys. He has one kid that he says "Got onto some trouble" but he doesn't go into detail. Did Grampa Sonny Franzese ever get any of them involved in the mob and try to get them to pick up where Michael left off?
On the one hand he didnβt snitch. No he really didnβt, the only testimony he gave was about Norbie Walters who not only wasnβt a made guy but who wasnβt even a street guy more of a corrupt civilians. And on top of it the secrets are al out everyone knows all about LCN these days there has been mass public interest ever since The Godfather and dozens of guys have flipped and spilled the beans
On the other hand hereβs (from their perspective maybe) this douchebag who walked away from the life and is now yapping about it disavowing it spilling more beans about our lifestyle and making money from it. Fuckin disgrace, yea it could had been worse he could had flipped but Phil did 20 years in the can and never said a fuckin peep,
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggME8xMokIg
Essentially for a TL;DW, according to Michael: The italian mob absolutely didn't hate black people in the 60s, He takes issue with literally every scene that puts the mafia in a bad light, from the stepmom being with dickie and the black guy to every scene of domestic violence where mob guys hit their wives and goomahs. He literally says with a straight face that mobsters were not abusive to their partners and that it was offensive that mob guys were so badly portrayed as abusive and racist and dysfunctional. Guy goes the race baiting route and by claiming this was also offensive to italian americans somehow.
In the starting of it he literally threatens chase saying he wishes he was still a mob guy if he ever saw Chase.
"Reformed Christian ex mob guy" what a pisciadu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggME8xMokIg
I know the movie is known to be poor quality, he just didn't even review it just huffed and puffed about being offended while riding his mob bona fides then acting like an offended choir boy again.
Bonus he shoehorns in "Oh I want to have a 'sit down' with you David Chase".. This guy is a joke lol.
I've seen a article about the Russian Mafia in the U.S and it talks about Gaspipe and Michael Franzese.
https://www.rferl.org/a/1080512.html - Article
This article claims that "Michael Franzese admitted to ordering the murders of other Russian crime figures who tried to push their way in on the action. He said, "when they threatened our biggest moneymaker, they threatened our family." He said the Russians had "little" fear of U.S. prisons and "absolutely no respect" for U.S. law."
Does that not give him the approval to talk about certain killings he might've been involved in?
The $MAFIA project combines the best elements of a meme-coin with a long term life cycle as well as a practical, long term, cross-chain use case of the NFT gaming project MOB CITY, guided by the progressive rollout of an NFT marketplace, gambling minigames, and an eventual action / strategy (MOB CITY) funded by an angel investor, the reflections from our base BEP-20 token, and backed by our soon to be expanded team of in house game designers and artists.
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Project is relaunching after a week-long hiatus and nearly $100k spent on name recognition with much more to be spent in Blitzkrieg shilling campaign. New audit from TechRate building upon our previous one from solidproof.io incoming --
Tokenomics: π°6% BUSD Rewards kicked up to each member of the family from the streets π₯ π³Anti-Whale - 2% buy back πtax on sells, 0.25% limit on buys in first hour post-launch, 0.25% limit on sells forever. You dump, you die. Weβll leave the gun, but take the cannoli. π΅2% Liquidity - Our Thing has never gone insolvent. π¦6% BUSD to publicly viewable gnosis-safe game fund: devs never need to sell a single token, as interest in the project grows so does our game.
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- Sponsored by Michael Franzeseπ, βThe Prince of the Mafiaβ -- ex-Capo of the Colombos and Greatest Earner π° for La Cosa Nostra since Al Capone OF ALL TIME
- Talks with Rudy GiulianiββοΈ in the works, stay tuned -- Mr. βMob Busterβ needs money for legal feesπ
βοΈ FairLaunch - Sunday 9/12 - 4 pm EST
CA: 0x064397077dd20ccbe94731762f25f4afac996622
π Site: mafiatoken.com
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TW: twitter.com/token_mafia/
OpenSea: opensea.io/collection/mafiatoken
YT (featuring theme song $LOYALTYCOIN by BscConsigliere): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDGATyyJonNu0SDBpumff1w
There may come a day when you may be called upon to do a service for this
... keep reading on reddit β‘
It's so lame and full of shit that its actually funny to hear him. The guy does 2 things: reads the synopsis and acts like he's offended. He says shit like it's offensive to Italian Americans while it's clear that the characters in the movie don't represent them anyways. Literally zero depth.
Iβve been watching some of Michael Franzeseβs youtube videos. Does anyone know what the mob thinks of him? Do they dislike/hate him, do they see him as a traitor, do they see him as a poser (as in his stories are embellished or made up). I mean, I think heβs credible. Iβm just here seeking a more informed opinion.
Iβve only recently gone down the Mafia rabbit hole, so apologies if this is a topic thatβs been discussed to death already. I recently watched this video, where Franzese states that his personal Hoffa killer candidate is still alive, though he is likely never ever getting out of prison.
What do you think of this? Would you say that Franzese is a credible guy to begin with, or are his videos just another story that someone exaggerates or embellishes for money? If you do think he is telling the truth and that the man Franzese believes to be Hoffaβs killer is still alive, who do you think it might be? The killer being alive should narrow the list down quite a bit, after all. Due to my admitted limited knowledge of the mafiaβs history so far, really only one guy comes to mind, and thatβs James Coonan. As far as I know, he was already implicated in the killing by one former Mafia hitman (though admittedly, the second part of that story is incredibly stupid, the part about Hoffa being buried under Giants Stadiumβ¦.), and is 75 years old, and isnβt scheduled for release until 2030. I donβt have enough knowledge to say that itβs definitely him that Franzese is talking about, just naming the only possibly relevant guy that I can think of at the moment.
Thoughts?
It seems that his crew was one of the most powerful ones in the Colombos, he said in an interview that there were 300 people under him (soldiers and associates combined), and that they were making up to 8 million per week, wow.
βοΈ NOTE: TITLE OUTDATED!
FairLaunch - Sunday 9/12 at 4 pm EST - THIS SUNDAY, SICILY COMES TO THE BINANCE SMART CHAIN.
The $MAFIA project combines the best elements of memecoins with the long term use case of an NFT gaming project featuring minigames, a dedicated marketplace, and an eventual action / strategy game (MOB CITY), funded in part by an angel investor.
Project is relaunching due to contract error missed by the solidityproof.io -- for once that's bullish on the long term project. $100k in liquidity to scam contracts -- just proves we have a lot of traction.
NOTE: CA is 0x064397077dd20CCbE94731762F25f4afAc996622
sponsored by Michael Franzese, βThe Prince of the Mafiaβ: ex-Capo billionaire of the Colombo Crime family and greatest earner π° for la cosa nostra of ALL TIME (check YouTube).
βοΈ FairLaunch - SUNDA 9/12 at 4 pm EST
Key Features:
Reaudit Incoming β
Slightly Changed Tokenomics:
π°6% BNB Rewards kicked up to each member of the family from the streets π₯
π΅2% Liquidity
π³Anti-Whale (Limits each sell order to only 0.25% of the supply, and for the first hour of the fair launch, buy orders limited to 0.25% of the supply as well
πAuto Buy Back (2% tax on sells πͺgoes to buying back $MAFIA and burning it forever)
π¦6% BNB reflection to Game Development Wallet: vision for the project is chain migration or even cross chain gaming functionality, thanks to the reflection system, developers will never need to sell tokens or depress the price.π¨In house game designers are artists
πOmertΓ‘ Oath Tokenomics
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