John Franzese Jr. stood outside a restaurant in Indiana dragging on a Marlboro Light when the feeling hit him again. That old familiar dread. The one that makes you scan parking lots for kill zones. He was 60 years old, clean for 18 years, living under his real name for the first time since 2006. But some reflexes never die.
He looked at his car parked between two others and thought, “Perfect location, a dead end. Three or four cars, it’d be done in seconds.” This is what it means to be the most famous turncoat in Mafia history. The man who wore a wire on his own father. The son who destroyed the last great underboss of New York.
But here’s what the headlines never told you. John Franzese Jr. didn’t flip because the FBI pressured him. He didn’t do it for money. He did it because he was dying, strung out, HIV-positive, and desperate to save whatever was left of his soul. And the man he betrayed, Sonny Franzese, underboss of the Colombo crime family, a killer who dodged murder charges for 50 years, wasn’t just his father.
He was the man who taught him that loyalty meant everything until John learned it meant nothing. This is the story of a Mafia family that destroyed itself from the inside. A father who built an empire on violence and omerta. A son who inherited the throne then burned it down. From the mansions of Long Island to federal witness protection.
From Studio 54 to homeless shelters. From made man to rat. This is how John Franzese Jr. flipped on one of history’s most notorious mobsters, lived to tell the tale, and learned that betrayal runs both ways. The question everyone asks, was it worth it to destroy your father, lose your family, and spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder? John’s answer might surprise you, but first, you need to understand who Sonny Franzese was because you don’t betray a legend without consequences.
Roslyn, Long Island. The Franzese family lived in one of the biggest houses on Shrub Hollow Road, 40-ft pool, putting green, a museum room filled with art that nobody asked too many questions about. John Franzese Jr. was born in 1960, the fourth of six kids. A sweet kid, everyone said. Soft, maybe a little feminine.
He sang while he played, romped around the wealthy North Shore village like he didn’t have a care in the world. His father, John Franzese Sr., everyone called him Sonny, dressed like a movie star, knew Frank Sinatra personally, got the best tables at the Copacabana. When someone once asked if he knew Sinatra, Sonny replied, “You should have asked if Frank Sinatra knew Sonny Franzese.
” That wasn’t arrogance, that was fact. Sonny moved in circles with Marilyn Monroe, Sammy Davis Jr., Jake LaMotta, Rocky Graziano. He had stakes in Buddha Records and produced Deep Throat. He was a star in a world of stars. But Sonny had another life, one that John wouldn’t understand for years.
Sonny’s first three kids came from his marriage to Ann Schilla, an aspiring actor, Maryann, Carmine, Lorraine. But mob wives were supposed to make babies and dinner, not shampoo commercials. So, in 1959, Sonny ditched Ann for Tina Capobianco, a teenage cigarette girl he reportedly met at the Stork Club. Tina was Italian, elegant, 19 years old, and completely dazzled by Sonny’s world.
She gave him three more children, John Jr., Gia, and Tina Jr. Sonny also adopted Michael, who Tina claimed was from a previous marriage, but who Michael himself says was actually Sonny’s biological son. At home, Sonny was a devoted father. He cooked calzones for the kids, never missed dinner, separated work and family with surgical precision.
But he had rules. “Do things the right way,” he’d tell John. Everything from schoolwork to table manners had a standard. When John would break into song, singing in that high altar boy vibrato, Sonny would snap, “Men don’t sing like that.” He made John read Machiavelli’s The Prince. To defy Sonny’s decrees was to feel his wrath.
The same went for Tina, with whom Sonny had a volatile, fevered relationship. He loved her and berated her. She responded by spending his money. By the late 1960s, the Franzeses were the most famous family in town, for all the wrong reasons. Sonny was facing two separate trials, one for murdering a snitch, one for masterminding bank robberies.
Anyone who read the papers knew he’d killed upwards of 50 people. Newsday called him the New York mob bosses coming king. But John didn’t read the papers. John knew his dad owned a dry cleaning business, a legitimate, respectable dry cleaning business. When classmates whispered, when teachers looked at him funny, when FBI agents parked outside the house, Tina had an explanation.
“They don’t like Italians. The government’s trying to frame him.” And when Sonny was acquitted in his murder trial, it proved she was right. Right? Then in 1970, everything changed. Sonny was convicted in the bank robbery’s case, sentenced to up to 50 years at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. John was 9 years old.
But he didn’t blame his father for leaving him fatherless. He blamed the FBI. Michael was the one who told him the truth. Michael, 9 years older, handsome, whip smart, take charge. They’d shared a bunk bed as kids, commiserated about their mother’s obsessive housekeeping. The boys were forbidden from even entering their bedroom after Tina cleaned it.
John idolized Michael. So when Michael sat him down around 1976, when John was 16, and explained reality, John listened. Michael told him he was a made member of the Colombo crime family. That he’d sworn a blood oath to honor omerta, the code of silence. That their father wasn’t a dry cleaner. He was the Colombo’s most feared and powerful captain.
A capo who ran a 300-man crew that controlled extortion, loan sharking, gambling, unions. That Sonny had lucrative stakes in the music industry and pornography. That everything John thought he knew was a lie designed to protect him. Did Dad kill anyone? John asked. Michael sidestepped the question. Made guys never discussed past killings, but he was honest about the rules.
If you’re asked to kill someone, Michael said, you got to. And they pay you? John asked. No. You do it out of loyalty. That conversation changed everything. John’s mandated evolution accelerated. Out went the singing, the softness, in came fist fights, football, toughness. John and his buddies blew up cars with pipe bombs, jumped random guys.
He was becoming what Sonny wanted, a man. A Franzese man. By his late teens, John had VIP access to every nightclub in New York. While his classmates wore caps and gowns at graduation, John was peacocking at Studio 54, driving a modified Datsun 280Z, clubbing with a different woman every night.
One of them was his former teacher. He was Sonny’s son. Michael’s little brother. Civilian status, but royal bloodline. Then, in 1977, something miraculous happened. Sonny came home. After just under 9 years in federal prison, Sonny Franzese was paroled. How? Nobody knew. Lax parole codes, they said. God knows what else. But Sonny was back, and he immediately installed John as his driver and messenger.
This was a big deal. Sonny’s parole terms prohibited him from associating with other criminals, so he couldn’t carry messages himself. He couldn’t meet with soldiers or captains. But his son could. His civilian son could go anywhere, talk to anyone. Sonny wouldn’t even let his soldiers carry messages to the family boss, Carmine “the Snake” Persico.
But he sent John. Soon, John got proposed, the first official step toward becoming made. His mentor was Michael, whose career trajectory was meteoric. Michael was sharper than most wiseguys. He eschewed nickel-and-dime scams. He landed lucrative stakes in construction, car dealerships, unions, the music industry.
Some of it was even legitimate. But his masterstroke, the operation that got him promoted to capo, was a massive bootlegging scheme. They’d buy gasoline wholesale, sell it at below market prices, and pocket the gas tax fees. According to Michael, the racket earned him up to $8 million a week. He was even portrayed in Goodfellas in the famous Bamboo Lounge scene when Henry Hill walks in.
That guy. I’m going to see him. That was Michael. Michael was the front man, the earner, the brain. John was the pleaser, the one who kept things light and friendly. John says he helped facilitate a deal for a rising R&B singer named Christopher Williams. When Sonny needed a lawyer, John and Michael worked with Roy Cohn, the notorious fixer who’d mentored Donald Trump.
Cohn later begged off the case after the brothers made it clear he’d be killed if the appeal failed. “We’re all partners,” Sonny and Michael told John. But John wasn’t getting paid like a partner. He still lived in his childhood bedroom. This irked him. He wondered if they were cashing in on his efforts. Both he and Carmine, who’d long since returned from his stint on a California commune, thought Michael was jealous of Sonny’s namesake.
It would have made sense. When Sonny held infant John at his christening, he told people, “I knew my goal in life was for him to be the boss.” Despite the tension, Michael says Sonny treated John like gold. But John saw a different side of his father during those years as his driver. The old man was a pain in the ass, constantly paranoid, constantly ordering John to check the rearview mirror for feds.
He mocked John’s fancy air-conditioned cars. “You need cars to make you look good,” Sonny told him. “I make a car look good because I’m in it.” While cruising through Brooklyn, Sonny would point out locations where he’d done work. He always spoke in code. Sometimes he’d pantomime pulling a gun from his waistband.
By now, John understood what that meant. Sonny had made his bones by carrying out hits for the bosses. He’d been discharged from the army due to pronounced homicidal tendencies. And his taste for hands-on work continued even as he ascended to capo when most mobsters delegated violence. John also concluded that Sonny had committed the murder he’d been acquitted of.
The victim had been shot, stabbed, and submerged in Jamaica Bay with concrete blocks tied to his limbs. Whenever Sonny heard about similar cases, he’d offer advice. “Air gets into sunken bodies and floats them to the surface,” he’d explain. “You got to rip the guts out because it’ll come back to haunt you.” John was absorbing all of this, the violence, the paranoia, the code.
He was being groomed for a life that looked glamorous from the outside. Studio 54, fancy cars, beautiful women, respect. But underneath, it was about control, fear, and the willingness to kill. And then cocaine entered the picture. Early 1980s, John was 23 in a Manhattan strip club driving a cream-colored Cadillac Biarritz. He’d been hitting the clubs hard, drinking too much.
A buddy offered him a line of cocaine. John had always scorned drugs, just like Sonny and Michael. The family line was clear. Drugs were for degenerates, not for made guys, not for Francises. But that night, John was too drunk and sick to care. He snorted the line, and everything changed. The first snort set him right.
The next ones fueled him for 6 At first, he thought he had it under control. He was helping run one of Sonny’s loan sharking operations. He started shaking down club owners who sold coke. At first, he took their money. Then he started taking their coke instead. Within months, he was spending every cent on blow and hookers and suites at the Waldorf.
Plus $15,000 a month on silk t-shirts, custom suits, Italian shoes. Michael tried to rein him in. John didn’t listen. Sonny wanted John to get made, to officially join the family. Michael argued against it. “You don’t understand what’s going on with my brother.” He told Sonny. But Sonny believed John would straighten out once he took the oath.
The dispute became moot in 1986 when Michael was convicted in his gas bootlegging scheme. He got 10 years in federal prison and $14.7 million in restitution fees. With Michael gone, John spiraled completely out of control. He got arrested multiple times for drug possession. Once, a cop caught him about to inject cocaine while sitting in a limousine. He dealt heroin.
He robbed drug dealers. One of them opened fire on him. Then, in 1990, came the moment that should have woken him up but didn’t. John was partying with a hooker when his kid sister Gia called. She said she was unwell. She needed him. John blew her off. Hours later, Gia died of a cocaine overdose. She was young, beautiful, and dead because the Franzese family disease had metastasized.
But John was too high to process it. Too high to grieve. Too high to stop. Then Sonny gave him a test. He told John to visit a guy who was a problem. In Sunny-speak, that meant someone who needed to be killed. This was John’s chance to prove himself, to show he was worthy of being made, worthy of the Franzese name.
But John got high instead. He never handled it, never even showed up. “Never in my life have I been so embarrassed.” Sunny raged when he found out. “The first time somebody asked you to take care of business, you never got it done.” For Sunny, this was the ultimate betrayal. Not the drugs, not the arrests, but the failure to complete a murder when ordered.
That was unforgivable. Soon after, the Colombos sent John to a private social club that was practically empty. John realized too late what was happening. He was about to be taken for a ride, the mob euphemism for getting killed. But one of his cousins happened to walk in and saw what was about to happen. The cousin steered John out of the club with firm instructions.
“There’s nothing your father’s going to be able to do for you,” the cousin said. “It’s over. Stay away from us.” John had been excommunicated. Cast out, not because he’d violated omerta or cooperated with law enforcement, but because he was a drug addict who couldn’t be trusted. The Colombo family didn’t kill him out of respect for Sunny, but John was dead to them.
What followed were years of absolute rock bottom, homelessness, depravity, delusion. John shot cocaine daily, sharing needles, contracting HIV. His arms became streaked with rainbow-colored bruises. He wore garbage bags as shoes and wandered along Queens Boulevard staring at phone booths, which he saw as portals connecting him to his lost family.
He pulled stick-ups, smoked discarded cigarettes, turned tricks, anything to get $12 for another vial of crack. In 1995, John was arrested for carrying an unlicensed gun. He spent about 9 months in jail drying out. When he got out, there was a message on his answering machine. “Hey, Johnny boy, give me a call.
” The caller was Rob Lwiki, an FBI agent assigned to New York’s Organized Crime Unit. Lwiki had been investigating Sonny for years. He knew the entire Franzese family. He had even arrested Sonny a couple of times for parole violations. It was a relationship conducted with degrees of mutual professionalism. When Lwiki walked into a local bakery, Sonny would offer him bread and cakes.
“We’re hoodlums, they’re cops.” Sonny told John once. “If they catch you, that’s on you.” Lwiki periodically called members of the Franzese ecosystem, trying to build rapport, fishing for informants. The Franzeses always gave a polite no and hung up. They were fiercely loyal to Sonny, who by the mid-1990s had become the Colombos’ underboss.
Officially, this meant he was second in command. Unofficially, he ran the entire operation. The boss position had been a revolving door since the early 1990s, when an intra-family war called the Third Colombo War killed multiple members, led to dozens of arrests, and even caught civilians in the crossfire. But if Lwiki was a bit more persistent with John than with others, he had his reasons.
John was a desperate mess with no allies and nothing to lose. Plus, Lwiki and John were both North Shore guys, born a year apart, chased the same girls, cheered for the Jets. There was a natural rapport. “John, listen,” Lewicky said when they finally met on a secluded park bench in Roslyn. “I think it would be good for you to hear what I have to say.
” Lewicky was wearing a wire, transmitting the conversation to undercover agents nearby. After exchanging pleasantries, he made his pitch. John’s life was a disaster. He needed to make a move. “John, it pays to have a friend in the FBI,” Lewicky said. “I’ll be able to give you some money every month.
” John was interested, but the main selling point came when Lewicky suggested that John’s cooperation might take legal heat off his parents. Sonny was constantly being jailed for parole violations. Tina was suspected of credit card fraud. Lewicky believed John’s motives were mixed. John said they were pure, but his feelings were complicated.
“Is there any way you can guarantee my dad won’t go back to jail?” John asked. “Your dad would have to cooperate,” Lewicky replied. “You can forget that. Your dad’s not the target. The target is the Colombos. When you hear things your dad tells you, I need to know that stuff, but I’ll shield you.” “All right,” John said. “Let’s do it.
” For the next few months, John detailed the family’s inner workings, the scams, the structure, the players. His personality was relatable. His intel was gold. He and Lewicky formed a kind of friendship, but it was conditional. “If at any time we find out you’re using drugs,” Lewicky said, “this stops immediately.
” Months later, John was back on drugs. The cooperation ended. Lewicky cut him off. For the next 3 years, John spiraled even further. He stole his family’s jewelry to sell for drugs, drank bottles of cologne for the alcohol content, bounced in and out of rehabs and detox cells. He was killing himself in slow motion, and Sunny watched in despair and rage.
This [ __ ] guy, Sunny would bellow. He’s killing himself 1 hour at a time. Once, John stole $11,000 from a family safety deposit box. He turned around to find Sunny standing there, watching him. Please don’t run, Sunny said quietly. I don’t care about the money. John ran. By 2001, John was shuddering on his mother’s couch, convinced his pneumonia was AIDS-related.
It wasn’t, but he was dying either way. That’s when Michael appeared. Michael, who had been released from prison in the mid-1990s, had found God and walked away from the mafia. How he did this without getting killed remained a mystery. Most assumed he had paid his way out, maybe seven figures. Michael denied it.
He believed his faith, his refusal to testify against former associates, and his wife had protected him. He was now a motivational speaker and author. His book called Quitting the Mob. Michael had already lost Gia to drugs. He wouldn’t lose John. Brother, you can stay under two conditions, Michael said.
Number one, don’t talk to me about business. Number two, don’t ever dare bring a drug around your nieces and nephews. John agreed. He moved to Los Angeles into Michael’s palatial house, and for a while, he stayed clean until he didn’t. But then something changed. One day, John was wandering through a music store and saw a CD by Christopher Williams, the R&B singer he’d helped years earlier.
He checked the liner notes. In the special thanks section, there was his name, John Franzese. This tiny blip of validation hit him like lightning. It was the first in a series of what John calls miraculous stuff. The next came when he stumbled into an AA AA meeting. He had been to plenty before, using them as places to bum cigarettes and pick up women, but this time felt different.
He met a guy named Daryl. You’re given a gift here, Daryl told him. This is your new life. John started attending regularly. A fellow 12-stepper got him into Odessa House, a sober living facility that provided free housing and treatment exclusively to recovering addicts in the music industry.
John told a staffer about his minor connection to the business. Any way you could prove that? The staffer asked. Would a CD with my name in the credits be enough? It was. John stayed for 9 months. When he left in late 2002, he was clean. Actually clean. He found a small apartment in Santa Monica, stayed close to Odessa House, partly because he had fallen for one of the staffers, Dinice Rodriguez, [clears throat] an ex-addict herself.
They eventually married. Thanks to weightlifting and HIV treatments, including testosterone and growth hormone injections, John transformed physically. He looked like a bull shark in sweats and a backwards baseball cap. His transformation thrilled Sonny, who saw opportunity. He wanted John back in the fold, but the longer John stayed clean, the more he wanted to stay that way.
He had seen where the mob life led. His parents’ marriage was a crucible of rage and violence. His siblings were estranged. Michael had warned Sonny that he smelled a rat in John. Sonny didn’t believe him. Nobody believed anybody because everybody lied. “I don’t want to hurt people.” John told Luwiki around 2004.
“I can put a stop to this and atone for what I’ve done.” The FBI had a plan. John would infiltrate the Colombos by becoming an earner, someone who made money for the family. The FBI facilitated his new career as a steroids dealer. They gave him real pills for appearance and stacks of cash that would become the Colombos cut.
John would record everything. The biggest hurdle was the wire. It wasn’t like in the movies with a microchip in your ear or a bug hidden under your shirt. Luwiki handed John a black gizmo the size of a garage door opener. “Just keep it in your shirt pocket.” Luwiki said. John thought, “This [ __ ] guy.” He had seen wiseguys sniff out bugs in the strangest places, including his parents house.
A few hundred dollars a month suddenly didn’t seem worth dying for. “You know we hug a lot?” John said. “Nobody’s going to frisk you.” Luwiki replied. “You’re Sonny’s son.” That was the key. To challenge Sonny’s namesake would be to challenge Sonny himself. And in 2005, nobody dared do that. Sure, all the families had rat problems by then.
Henry Hill had flipped on the Luccheses. Sammy the Bull Gravano had turned on John Gotti. But the idea that a Franzese would betray his own father, his own flesh and blood, was unthinkable. An FBI document details each of John’s 85 taped meetings. The first was on March 8th, 2005 at the Met Cafe, 99 2nd Avenue, New York City.
John met with a mob associate named Carmine Quagliariello. They discussed extorting a health spa in West Hollywood and a loan sharking operation. “We want a [ __ ] paycheck every week out of the [ __ ] joint.” Quagliarriello said on tape. “He owes me over 150 large with Vic.” John asked how far he should go to get the club under control.
“The only thing we can do is put him in the hospital for several weeks.” Quagliarriello replied. Two days later, John met with Sonny at a residence on Long Island. John told his father that Quagliarriello wasn’t getting the job done. “I would have grabbed him and told him, ‘Look, you [ __ ] rat bastard.'” Sonny said. “I would have told him to go out there and get the money and bring it here.
And if he don’t give it to you, leave him on the floor.” The wire transmitted everything live to Luwiki, who monitored most of John’s sit-downs from a nearby location. He was impressed. Wired John sounded exactly like regular John, natural, confident. Once, John’s transmitter tumbled out of his pocket during a meeting and clattered onto the floor.
John just picked it up, put it back in his pocket, and kept talking like nothing happened. For 17 months, John recorded approximately 400 hours of conversations. Several involved Sonny directly. The tapes were filled with mob talk. “I’m going to kill this rat. He paid me in all 20s. I said, ‘What are you [ __ ] selling, gas?'” But John also documented extortion, robberies, hijacking a marijuana operation, and violence against anyone who didn’t pay.
His fake steroid ring was flush with cash. He was doing so well that he recorded a Colombo family member named Michael Catapano discussing with Sonny the possibility of John officially being sponsored, the penultimate step before getting made. But things got dangerous during a meal at John Catapano and Sonny sat down to eat. The Colombos were worried about rats in their ranks.
They had enacted a new rule. “Anybody who vouches for a guy who goes bad,” Catapano said, “that guy goes, too.” “Yeah,” Sonny agreed. John realized what this meant. If he got caught, Sonny would die, too. Not just metaphorically. The family would kill him. And Sonny had just agreed to the rule. It was time to testify. When the US Marshals explained the Federal Witness Protection Program to John, they told him he could bring 40 lb of possessions.
That’s it. 40 lb. His entire life reduced to a suitcase. He couldn’t say goodbye to his wife. Couldn’t say goodbye to his mother. When Tina couldn’t find John for days, she called Michael. “Do you know where your brother is? We can’t find him.” John had vanished. The Marshal Service administered a psychological evaluation and asked about locations.
“Do you know anyone in Iowa? How about Florida? Which city?” Any place where the Franzeses had connections was eliminated. John’s final destination remained a mystery as a fortified vehicle took him and Luwiki to the federal building in Los Angeles. S. Marshals took over. “John, thank you,” Luwiki said bittersweetly.
“I wish you well.” That’s when John Franzese ceased to exist. His plane ticket and ID said he was Michael Carter, a passenger boarding a flight in Burbank. When he landed at a second airport, a marshal handed him $1,000 and led him to another gate. John boarded a flight to Cleveland, where another marshal handed him another $1,000.
The envelope stuffed with cash felt oddly familiar, like the old days. The Byzantine itinerary was designed so marshals could spot anyone tailing John. It ended in Oklahoma City, where a marshal in a cowboy hat spirited him to a hotel room and confiscated his ID and cell phone. John protested. The phone held all his family photos, his personal memories.
The marshal filled the sink with water and submerged the phone, destroying it. “Don’t worry,” the agent said. “Keep your receipts.” Months passed. The marshals moved John to a hotel in Texas, where he spent hours each day meditating, finally finding some measure of peace. Eventually, they relocated him to Columbia, South Carolina. His new name, John Maggio.
The marshal nixed his first choice, which was DiMaggio. John got a cat, got a tenant, started rebuilding. But he was just settling in when an acquaintance discovered his diary, freaked out, and told her boyfriend she was living with a mobster hiding from assassins. By now, Sonny and the Colombos knew John had flipped.
But they didn’t put it all together until 2008, when federal prosecutors charged Sonny and 11 federates with racketeering, conspiracy, robbery, loan sharking, drug trafficking, and extortion. Sonny was 89 years old, battling kidney disease and gout. A conviction at his age was a death sentence. That’s why, according to the FBI, Sonny asked an associate named Guy Fatato to help find and kill John.
Sonny didn’t realize Fatato was himself a cooperating witness wired by the FBI. On tape, Sammy told Fatato, “I killed a lot of guys. You’re not talking about four, five, six, 10.” He gave instructions on how to avoid leaving fingerprints. “Wear nail polish. How to avoid leaving DNA. Use a hair net.” He suggested dismembering the corpse in a kiddie pool, drying the body parts in a microwave, and crushing them in a garbage disposal.
Sammy’s trial in 2010 was tabloid gold. The New York Post ran the headline, “Rat’s my boy.” The papers portrayed John as the villain, the wayward son who betrayed the last stand-up mafioso. But the truth was more complicated. John had relocated again in 2008, packing another 40 lb and moving from South Carolina to Indianapolis. Another new name, Matt Pazzarelli.
Another converted garage apartment. His human contact was limited to 12-step meetings, diner small talk, and covert trial prep sessions with prosecutors. He wavered. At one point, John snuck a call to Michael. “I feel horrible about what I did.” “Well,” Michael replied, “maybe you have time to reverse this.
” John never called back. When he finally landed in New York for the trial, it was the first time he’d been home in 9 years. A team of marshals and cops whisked him into a fortified SUV, then zipped him inside a Kevlar contraption that made him impervious to attack and blind to his surroundings. He was taken to a high-security facility with no windows and vault-like doors, locked in a bedroom where he spent days smoking, pacing, and eating takeout.
When it was time, an SUV took John to the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse. He fought off panic attacks as a bailiff guided him to the stand. He made a point of looking straight at everyone. His mother returned his gaze. Sonny slumped at the defense table wearing an expression of weary indifference did not.
John didn’t expect to see Michael there, but his older brother showed up. The family is taking this very hard, Michael told a reporter outside. Sonny’s lawyer, Richard Lind, portrayed John as a freeloading cocaine addict who sold out his father for money and media opportunities. John was rumored to have earned $500,000 from the FBI. The truth? He made 50,000.
When asked to identify his father, John pointed at Sonny. He’s sitting there in the yellow shirt. After summarizing his rise and fall in the Colombo family, John said, “I’m not talking about my father as a man. I’m talking about the life he chose. This life absorbs you. You only see one way.
” He explained why he flipped. “I wanted to change my life. They would provide a means for me to change my life and to make up for what I had done.” The trial’s most brutal moment came when Lind focused on the taped conversation where Sonny acknowledged the Colombos new penalty for those who vouched for rats. “That someone would get killed, is that right?” Lind asked.
“There was a day when that would happen.” John replied. “So you realize it was a possibility for your father, yet you had him vouch for you. Is that right?” “Yeah.” “But this is how you stop things like this from ever happening. By having someone killed?” “No. By doing the right thing and stopping a way of life that does that.
” By the time John stepped down, everyone was wrecked. Tina reportedly followed Sonny into the bathroom and begged him to plead guilty to give John a break. Michael looked at his parents and thought, “Is this what our family has become? I don’t care about anything anymore.” Sonny told Michael. “Nothing matters to me. My own son turned on me.
” Sonny was sentenced to 8 years in federal prison. He was 93 years old. John was back in Indianapolis when he heard the news. The realization that his father would likely die behind bars and that his family blamed him for it sent John into a dark spiral. His FBI checks had run out.
He was broke, isolated, and haunted. He filled diary after diary with prayers, affirmations, Catholic devotionals, recovery slogans. The entries alternated between despair and hope, self-punishment, and self-love. In 2016, he wrote, “I’m disappearing. I walk alone in this loneliness toward this bright spark, knowing beginnings happen there.
Trust, hope, faith.” He attended 12-step meetings twice a day. But being a rough New York Italian in Indianapolis made him stand out. The emphasis on brutal honesty was tough for a guy living under a fake name. John walked a line, revealing general truths while avoiding specifics. Then, at a meeting, he heard the last thing he expected.
“Johnny boy.” Two Brooklyn guys he’d known back in the day were standing right in front of him. They weren’t made guys, but they were definitely mafia-adjacent. John’s heart stopped. But the guys quickly assured him they were 12-step lifers, too. Years clean, no connection to that world anymore.
John chose faith over flight. “My name’s John,” he said, “I’m an alcoholic.” He found part-time work at a small sober living home, collecting rent checks, helping new residents settle in. It was the first legitimate job he’d ever held. Then, in 2018, he got a call from his local marshal. “We have to relocate you.
” One of John’s fellow 12-steppers had figured out his real identity and revealed his location in the comments section of an online article. John had spent nearly a decade on the straight and narrow. He was tired of running. A life of stealth and fear, he decided, was no life at all. He wanted to tell his family why he’d done what he’d done, and if that earned him a bullet, then he’d die as John Franzese.
He exited witness protection quietly at first. When Michael made a public appearance in Indianapolis in 2016, John was too nervous to attend, but he started making calls to his siblings. “I didn’t do it to hurt the family,” he’d say, “I did it to save it.” Eventually, John embraced his real identity publicly. The Indianapolis Star profiled his anonymous life and work in recovery in 2019.
“The Mobster in Our Midst,” read the headline. His siblings were receptive to a point. Everyone had come to appreciate the degree to which Sonny’s reign of terror had destroyed the family. Their mother, Tina, had died alone and bitter in 2012, but relations with John remained raw, and there was still the matter of Sonny, who once again defied expectations.
At age 100, Sonny Franzese became the oldest inmate in the federal prison system, and then, impossibly, he made parole. That’s when John turned to his best friend in Indianapolis, Lisa Gilbreath, and said, “I think I might want to see my dad.” He debated it for 2 years. How do you visit a father who put a hit on you? A father who recently told a reporter, “Jesus suffered.
He didn’t squeal on nobody.” “Dude, he’s 102.” Gilbreath finally said, “If you’re going to go, we need to go now.” When John arrived at Sonny’s nursing home in Queens, he had a plan. Get there early in the morning when Sonny would be alone, not surrounded by visitors. Walking into a crowd of Sonny’s cronies could be fatal.
And even if they didn’t kill him, Sonny would feel compelled to save face. John wandered the second floor until he spotted a group of patients watching the news. Something about one of them drew him closer. The Yankees cap, the way he sat in his wheelchair. John approached. The man looked frail and worn. “Hey,” John said.
Sonny squinted up at him. “Hey, how are you?” He didn’t recognize his own son. “Do you know who I am?” John asked. “Yeah, yeah. I know who you are. Let’s go on the side.” John wheeled him into a private room. “Are you sure you know who this is? It’s coming to me. Do you know Anthony?” Sonny meant Anthony Flemmi, an old associate. John nodded.
Sonny studied him. “John.” “Yeah, Dad, it’s me.” In a blink, Sonny’s expression darkened. “Did you give them your real name? What are you doing here? They’re going to kill you.” Then, just as fast, he calmed down. “You know, it wasn’t nice what you did.” “I know, Dad. I never meant to hurt you.” “But why did you do that? What made you do that?” “I didn’t get paid no half a million, Dad.
” “Was it your mother?” “No, Dad. It wasn’t Mom. She was a good woman. You know she wasn’t well. We all knew she wasn’t well. But you expected her to act like someone who was well. Sonny didn’t answer. Then Son, you really stop doing that [ __ ] He meant drugs. It’s been 18 years. I’m proud of you.
You’re my son and I love you, but you’ve always been [ __ ] crazy. You’re always leaking oil. They talked for 3 hours. Finally, John pointed out the time. Sonny’s friends would be arriving soon. You got to go, Sonny said. Before they parted, Sonny pointed at John’s face. You need to go to a doctor. Get them wrinkles fixed. John dismissed it as the rambling of a 102 year old man.
But in later phone calls, Sonny kept bringing it up. See a plastic surgeon. Fix your face. John finally realized his father was speaking in code. One last time. Sonny didn’t want John to look younger. He wanted John to get a face that was completely unrecognizable. One last attempt to protect his son. That was the last time John saw his father.
Sonny Franzese died in February 2020 at age 103. He’d spent his final years in a nursing home, outliving most of his enemies, most of his friends, and nearly all of his generation. Sonny’s death changed everything for the siblings. It gave them permission to acknowledge the insanity of their childhood.
That May, Michael’s wife Cammie seized the moment and invited a surprise guest to Michael’s lavish 70th birthday party in Los Angeles. When Michael spotted John walking in, he dissolved into tears. For hours, the brothers talked. At times, John couldn’t get past how different their worlds had become. Michael was still living large.
John managed sober living homes in Indianapolis. But John was also overcome with gratitude and grace. He apologized for all the times he’d vanished, all the pain he’d caused. Michael shook his head. Just stay in our lives now, he said. We’re family. Today, John Franzese Jr. still lives in Indianapolis.
He manages two sober living homes. He’s been clean for over 20 years. He attends 12-step meetings regularly. He lives under his real name. And yes, occasionally, when he parks between two cars in an empty lot, the old feeling returns. That primal awareness that he’s in a kill zone, that someone, somewhere, might still want him dead.
But he’s made peace with it. He’s made peace with being called a rat. I am a rat, he says. You want to say that? Fine. It’s true. But there’s a different story to me. The different story is this. John Franzese Jr. grew up in a world where loyalty was everything, where blood was sacred, where you died before you talked.
He absorbed that code from birth. And then, he broke it. Not because the FBI pressured him. Not because they paid him. But because he was dying. And he wanted to save whatever was left of his soul. He destroyed his father to save himself. And in doing so, he exposed the central lie of mafia life. That loyalty runs both ways. Sonny demanded absolute loyalty from his son.
But when John failed one task, when he was too strung out to kill on command, the family tried to murder him. They cast him out. They would have killed him if not for a cousin’s intervention. The Franzese family story reveals something profound about organized crime. It’s not about honor. It’s not about loyalty. It’s about control, fear, and the willingness to destroy anyone, including your own children, to maintain power.
Sonny Franzese spent 50 years building an empire. He commanded respect. He earned millions. He sat as underboss of one of New York’s most powerful crime families. He dodged murder charges, survived internal wars, outlasted rivals. But in the end, his legacy is a shattered family. A daughter dead from drugs, a son in witness protection.
Another son who walked away and wrote a book. And Sonny himself dying at 103 in a nursing home, bitter and broken. John paid a price, too. He lost his family for over a decade. He lives with constant vigilance. He knows there are people who still consider him a traitor, who might kill him if the opportunity arose.
But he also knows something his father never learned, that there’s more to life than the thing itself, more than the club, the crew, the code. There’s redemption. There’s peace. There’s the possibility of being something other than what you were born to be. In the end, John Franzese Jr. didn’t just flip on his father.
He flipped on an entire way of life. And he lived to tell the tale.
