Oh my God.

Only in a video game

would you see this, trust me.

(smooth jazz)

- My name is Micheal Franzese and I am

a former Capo, Capo regime in the Colombo

crime family, one of the five New York Mafia families.

I was born in Brooklyn, raised there for many many years

and moved out to the coast here,

I'm in Los Angles now.

I'm with my wife, and bunch of kids and kinda changed

the direction of my life but, I was part of

that life for over 25 years.

I did some time in prison, was indicted

several times, arrested more times than I can remember.

Somehow managed to get through it all

and here I am now today.

I came into that life at an early age.

I was 24 years old when I was inducted into

the family in a very solemn ceremony

Halloween night 1975.

I was made with five other guys, that's the

term we use, "made."

My father was a heavyweight in that life,

he was the under boss of the

Colombo family back in the 60's.

My dad, unfortunately, drew a 50 year prison sentence.

He was convicted of masterminding

a nationwide string of bank robberies.

Went to trial, was convicted, and got a

50 year prison sentence.

So he had a powerful influence on me,

I got involved with that life to try and help

my father get out of that prison sentence,

and then I got deeply involved myself.

I came in as a soldier,

I was elevated to the position of capo "captain,"

capo regime, and at one point in time they were slating me

to become the boss of that family.

So went on to make a very significant amount of money.

I devised a scheme to defraud the government

out of tax in every gallon of gasoline,

ran that scheme for over eight years

and at one point in time I was

bringing in close to eight million dollars

a week and became a major,

major target of law enforcement.

I was indicted actually five times.

I had two federal racketeering cases,

one brought on by Rudy Giuliani.

The trial that I was acquitted in actually.

But then in 1985 I was indicted on another major

racketeering case by the feds.

10 year prison sentence,

I had a 15 million dollar restitution,

I'd fallen in love with a young girl

who was actually a dancer in a film

that I was involved in.

Married her and wanted to kinda change my life.

So I took the plea as a result of that.

I did eight years on that 10,

which was the maximum, came out

and kinda turned my life around.

I'm now a public speaker, I've written several books.

I've heard of these Mafia games because

I've been asked to get involved in them in some way

and never really paid too much attention to it.

My wife would think I lost my mind if

I start playing video games, but actually

my boys said "dad you should get involved

its fun," you know, they want me to

play a few times but I just never did it.

But I heard of them for sure.

Well there's probably a lot of things in video games that

you can't really do in real life.

I don't know, I'm about to find out.

- Obviously we're in Manhattan, my old stomping grounds.

Grew up in Brooklyn but, obviously

spent a lot of time in Manhattan.

- [Vito] I don't really remember much about my old country.

And then one day, my father decided

it was time to move away.

- My grandparents came over a little earlier than

that actually, I think 1910,

my grandparents first came here.

My father was actually, he was born in April

on a boat trip that my grandparents went back.

He was born there, they stayed there for

about six months, and then came back to the states.

It's funny, he got in trouble, he was a naturalized

citizen otherwise they would've deported him.

The way the Mafia started to form here

in America Unfortunately you know some of

the street guys were doin' exactly this.

They were feeding off of their own kind.

Yeah, it's somewhat realistic, yeah,

I mean this is how it started out, kinda

preying on there own kind.

And then it got a bit more sophisticated.

- Load this pile of crates onto that truck.

Start now and don't take all day.

- They got the dialouge right huh?

These guys must still be from Brooklyn.

You know mob guys don't usually do honest

work when they're in the mob, that's for sure.

Well they may do some but it's always in connection

to something illegal that they're doing.

- When I said I needed a job

I didn't mean slave labor.

- Whatever.

- I can make a hundred times more

working for Barbaro Incorporated.

- Wait, you said Barbaro? Joe Barbaro?

- You know Joe Barbara was a real guy by the way.

You ever here of Appalachia?

Back in the 1950s there was a meeting of all

the major mob guys from all over the country.

It was in Appalachia, New York.

Law enforcement got wind of it,

it was a lot of guys there and

they actually kind of invaded the place.

Everybody ran away, they locked up

a whole bunch of guys.

It was the last time that a major meeting

of mob guys from around the country

ever happened as a result to that.

- So you won't mind if I give Joe a call, right?

- So would he be calling a guy on

the phone to ask about that?

I don't know, I doubt it, we didn't use phone

calls for situations like that.

You probably say you know I'll go and meet the guy,

you know I'll find out, come back tomorrow,

I'll let you know.

And you better be telling the truth 'cause

if you're not, you're gonna be in trouble.

'Ya didn't wanna use somebody's name

back in the day.

That would get you in trouble.

Even if you knew somebody and you used

his name without them knowing about it,

you'd be in trouble.

I was in a bar that my father had

something to do with, I was younger.

And there was a guy at the bar that was

bothering one of the waitresses.

And so the owner came over to me and said,

"Mike can you talk to this guy,

cause he's gettin' a little bit out of control,

bein' a little out of hand."

And I said, okay.

So I went over to him and I said

"Hey, why don't you leave the girl alone,

she don't wanna be bothered, you're gettin'

a little out of hand."

And he looked at me and he said

"You know who I am?"

The worst line you could ever say

to somebody in that life.

And I said "no, tell me who you are."

He says, "You know who owns this place?"

I said "nah, tell me who owns it."

He said "guy by the name of Sonny Franzese."

I said "Really?"

He said "Yeah," he said "Lemme tell ya' this."

He said "Sonny's doing time right now,

he's away, but I make one phone call

and I'll have his son Michael down

here in five minutes."

And he's talkin' to me, okay?

So needless to say I said, "I'll tell you what,

come in the back, since you mentioned

such a strong name, I wanna talk to you," ya' know.

We took him in the back and I guarantee you,

this guy never would mention somebody's name again.

That was commonplace in New York.

People mention other people's names all the time.

Get in trouble.

So he's a collector.

So in other words, you'd Shylock

money on the street, and he's collecting, common job.

When I was a captain, I had a lot of guys around me.

I used to give the money to them at one or two

points a week, and they in turn

would lend it out.

You know, and add another point or two

for themselves so they could make some money,

because we had a lot of guys around us

that couldn't earn five cents,

if we didn't help them, ya' know,

give them something, they wouldn't have any money.

So, but everybody any mob guy that has

any kind of money, he's always

putting it out on the street.

When I went to prison, I had about

a million dollars on the street.

I was collecting two percent a week, so.

Do the math, it was a lot of money.

- Now get out of here before I kick your ass.

- Well, you know what, as soon as he said that,

that's what would happen.

(grunts)

(tense music)

- Now to be honest with you, I never,

usually there's no fight like that.

Normally it's one punch or one kick

and he's down, that's it, and the money comes back.

When a guy owes money they're not fighting back.

They're gonna pay because they know

who they owe it to.

And they know that if they don't pay

or if they do anything out of turn

they're gonna be in trouble.

You gotta remember, in that life,

you know, you make a mistake, you pay for it,

you could pay for it with your life.

I mean, it could be serious, so,

you don't see fights like that.

- Hey, pal.

Derek needs you to pay the fee for the barber.

- Oh, yeah, I must have forgot or something.

- Next time try to pay on time, okay?

Thanks.

- Now that's how it would go, normally.

- Hey, Derek needs you to pay the fee for the barber.

- Sure, here it is, I don't want no problems.

- Don't leave it until the last minute next time.

- Yeah, this is normal, boys.

You collect the money off all of these

guys that are just workers.

They must be gamblers.

- Hey pal, Derek needs you to pay the

fee for the barber.

- Gotta be a gambling debt, because

you wouldn't be lending money to guys like that.

This is not real, I gotta tell ya,

this is not realistic.

You don't see fights like this.

See one thing you gotta remember,

we didn't fight on the street.

If we fought it was some spontaneous thing

that happened in a club, or whatever.

Or if somebody got out of hand then

they didn't pay, they'd be in a hospital.

I mean they may as well be in a boxing ring.

I mean this is not realistic at all.

That's it, good kick, saw a lot of that.

A lot of this was unrealistic.

First of all, these are guys that,

they're working stiffs.

If money was lent to them, I'm sure it

wasn't a lot.

You lend to what you know you're gonna get paid back.