We were all surprised when the judge granted my request and even granted me more free time than I had sought. I had asked for six hours a day, five days a week, but the judge awarded me ten hours a day, six days a week. I would be transported from MCC to Jacob's office at 10:00 A.M. on each of the six days, watched over by U.S. marshals, and then returned to the jail around 8:00 P.M. that night. I was only the second inmate to have such a motion granted. Of course, Jacobs claimed the credit, after the fact, for filing the motion. As for me, I began to wonder if God had His hand in all of this.
John Jacobs's office was a prison of another kind, but it beat the total lockdown of MCC's ninth floor. I could eat better food, see my wife and child, and fight my case. It could have been a whole lot worse.
Studying all the charges against me and considering what was happening with other mob defendants, for the first time I began considering the possibility of working out a plea bargain. One of my codefendants, union boss Anthony Tomasso, had already rolled over. That was significant, because the union activities were an area where I was at risk. And even if I had been able to mount an effective defense against Tomasso and lorizzo, the current indictment was merely another in what appeared to be an endless string the task force was prepared to bring against me. Brooklyn's organized strike force chief, a sharp prosecutor named Laura Brevetti, was even then busy working on a gasoline-tax indictment. She was thus closing in on my most vulnerable area-the money we had made stealing taxes. That was the one indictment I truly feared.
At this point, Cammy was beginning, on her own, to understand more about the nature of my business. And as her understanding grew, it struck me that I had made the same mistake I accused my father of making when I was a child. It upset me that when he was going through his legal problems, he had never sat the family down and explained the newspaper stories, never explained to us what was happening. I felt he should have told us what to expect and who and what he was. But when it came my turn, I, too, never sat my families down to explain. Instead, I took the same silent route as Dad had taken. Even as close as I was to Cammy, I never admitted to her who I was or gave her a history of La Cosa Nostra.
What bothered her most now was what she perceived as the savage cannibalism of the crime families themselves. From her perspective, she had more to fear from my friends than from the prosecutors, and she had a point. Vincent Rotondo, a DeCavalcante capo she'd met when he was a codefendant with me in the Hyman/Cooper loan-shark trial, was blown away in front of his Brooklyn house while his wife and children huddled inside. Rotondo's body was covered with the fish he had purchased for dinner from a nearby deli. It was widely believed that he was killed because Jesse Hyman was his associate, and he had introduced Hyman to other made men. When Hyman became a government witness, Rotondo was finished.
Veteran mobster Johnny Irish Matera, a close friend of my father's, arrived at Kennedy Airport one afternoon from North Miami and drove to a meeting in Brooklyn headed by Persico. He failed to notice that he had an FBI tail. Because of this, Persico's parole was revoked for associating with felons, and Johnny Irish paid for the mistake with his life.
My initiation ceremony cohort, Jimmy Angellino, would later incur the mob wrath by trying to muscle in on the Gambino family's interests in New York's billion-dollar garment industry, which surrounds the Empire State Building. He was taken for a ride by his Colombo family brothers and was never seen again.
Rotondo's death and the murder of Gambino boss Paul Cas- tellano hit Cammy especially hard. She envisioned me going out the same way, in a puddle of blood in front of our home or on a dirty New York sidewalk outside an Italian restaurant. She decided that she'd rather have me in prison in California than free in New York.
That feeling, and her acceptance of my being in prison, made agreeing to a plea bargain a great deal easier. I was concerned about her increasing fears and had decided that I never again wanted to come home and find my emotional wife on the bedroom floor, trembling, crying, and clutching a stuffed monkey. All else considered, I would have fought the indictments in court, where I had always won. But even if I had been able to dodge yet another bullet, I would merely have doomed Cammy to a life of tormenting anxiety. And I'd be putting my children through the same hell my father's lifestyle had put me through.
For Cammy, I was ready to give up my criminal empire and go to jail, and even to attempt the impossible-sever my ties to La Cosa Nostra. With those private goals in mind, I concluded that my best position would be to offer an all-encompassing plea that settled everything, past and future. Over the next six weeks, I hammered away at the prosecutors until they agreed to a deal we could all live with.
10
As part of the plea bargain, I agreed to plead guilty to two of the twenty-eight counts filed against me-federal racketeering and tax conspiracy. I was given a ten-year prison sentence, was forced to forfeit nearly $5 million in assets, and agreed to be fined an additional $10 million in restitution.
I also agreed to plead guilty to the sixty-five counts charged against me in Florida, which included racketeering, grand theft, conspiracy, theft of state funds, and failure to account for taxes collected. The nine-year Florida sentence would run concurrent with the ten-year federal sentence. A $3 million Florida restitution fee would come from the $15 million federal agreement.
In addition to the pleas, I privately promised to quit the mob.
Publicly, I sang a different tune, one in keeping with my oath.
"I am absolutely one hundred percent not a member of organized crime," I told The Associated Press. "It's because of that label that I've had all these problems. I'm willing to give the government a pound of flesh if this will be the end of it."
In return for my "pound of flesh," the slate would be wiped clean. The sentence would cover past crimes and future indictments, and clear me of everything I had ever done-except in the case that I was found guilty of murder or perjury.
The feeling among the multitude of prosecutors and law enforcement officers who had hunted me varied widely on the plea. Those who supported it felt it was a major victory over a criminal who had proven difficult to convict. I would go to jail, my billion-dollar operation would be shut down, and I would have to pay what they saw as an enormous restitution fee. Plus, when I finally let it be known that I was turning my back on the family a short time later, they viewed my vow to quit the Mafia as the clincher. That, they believed, was an automatic death sentence.
"He's agreeing that he'll forever owe the federal government $14.7 million," Brooklyn strike force and joint task force prosecutor Jerry Bernstein told reporters. "That's very meaningful."
"I'm very pleased with the disposition," added strike force and task force Chief Ed McDonald. "We've convicted a major organized crime figure and forced him to make a significant restitution."
The United States Department of Justice was also pleased. It awarded each member of the Michael Franzese Task Force a plaque commemorating each one's accomplishment.
In Florida, the official response was similar.
"We were lucky. We caught our problem early. In New York, they're saying $500 million maybe missing," said Robert Dempsey, commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).
"That is a tremendous departure point," agreed Rolando Bolanos, FDLE chief. "Normally, when the head of the organization falls, the backbone will follow."
Those who fought the plea bargain believed that I got off much too easy. The detractors pointed to the deal made by junk bond king Michael Milken in April 1990 as a comparison. Milken agreed to pay a staggering $600 million in restitution, then later received his own ten-year prison sentence. "And Milken stole less money than Franzese," noted one bitter prosecutor.
"He got the deal of the century," said Suffolk County district attorney and organized crime specialist Ray Jermyn, a key joint task force member. "The government was suckered, just like he's suckered everybody else. The guy's amazing. Everybody loves him. He smiles, s
teals them blind, and they still love him."
In public, I strongly disagreed with this assessment, reminding everyone that not only had the government fined me $15 million, but it was also taking four to ten years of my life-depending on my conduct in prison.
"In simple terms," I stated for public consumption, "I lost and the government won. The score might have been closer than some wanted, but I lost nevertheless. The task force achieved its stated goal of destroying my organization and putting me behind bars. And never, even in my most private moments, did I feel that I suckered anybody. I came to realize that the life I was living was wrong, and I was glad to be paying my debt to society and starting a new life."
In reality, although I felt that the disposition was fair in many ways, I was sure that I had dodged a major bullet that could have landed me in prison for life. My plan was working perfectly.
11
After the plea agreement had been signed, I was allowed to fly back to Los Angeles with Cammy and our baby. The only difficulty we encountered was getting her baggage home. She had come to New York in the dead of winter with little more than a sweater and parka to fight the cold. Her sister, mother, and brothers, all lifetime Californians, had also lacked winter clothing. Because of this, Cammy had purchased so many bulky coats and sweaters during her sojourn that she now had to hire two taxis just to get her bags to the airport. She ended up having to ship most of her belongings as unaccompanied baggage on a cargo plane.
During the flight home, my U.S. marshal escorts let me sit with my wife and child. I hugged Cammy and played with Miquelle as we made the five-hour trip. Then, when we arrived in Los Angeles, I was allowed to spend the weekend at home before reporting to the U.S. marshal's office for phase one of my punishment.
Among numerous riders I had been able to negotiate into my plea agreement was one that enabled me to spend the three months prior to my sentencing in a Los Angeles halfway house. Halfway houses are set up, in part, to prepare long-term inmates nearing the end of their prison stay to reenter society. I took the position that I needed to prepare to leave society, and I was thus assigned to the Suicide Prevention Center/Community Treatment Center on Menlo Avenue. I arranged it so that I could be out from 6:00 A.M. to 11:00 P.M. each day. Basically, all I did was sleep at the place.
I wasn't totally free during the day, for U.S. marshals did monitor my every move. Because of the imprecise language in the plea papers, however, I was able to dictate the terms of my watch. The agreement stated that I was to pay the salaries of the officers on the twenty-four-hour detail, a sum that amounted to $4,000 a week. This apparently led the U.S. marshal's office to view it as a sort of "rent-a-cop" situation. They asked me how it was supposed to work, and I quickly laid out the least intrusive scenario. The marshals were to follow me in a separate vehicle on my daily rounds. They would park outside the buildings where I stopped but would not follow me inside.
In New York, the prosecutors were under the impression that the order meant I was to be bodily surrounded by marshals at all times, and I was aware of this perception. So, whenever any of the New York prosecutors came to California, I had the marshals stick closer to my side. Then, when the prosecutors left, the marshals were sent back to the trail car.
This unusual arrangement with the U.S. marshal's office allowed me to become almost a friend of those who shadowed me. They were decent men who worked hard, and I liked them, so I did my best to make their job easy and let them know that I wasn't going to get out of line. I even alerted them in advance of my schedule so that they could be properly attired.
"I'm going to the beach tomorrow, so bring your shorts," I advised them one afternoon. The marshals appeared the following morning dressed in swimsuits and carrying picnic gear.
"We're going to see the Dodgers tonight," I announced a week later. "I've got box seats for everyone."
On one occasion, the officers became disoriented by the plethora of white Mercedes in Los Angeles and followed the wrong car. I had to double back and hunt them down. Cammy and I chased them up Wilshire Boulevard.
"Hey, where are you guys going?" I shouted at a stoplight. "I turned on Beverly Glen!"
They followed us sheepishly and thankfully.
When Miquelle was christened at Westwood Hills Christian Church, we invited the marshals and their wives to the event and to the party afterward.
12
Cammy was happy about the halfway house arrangement. The only negative aspect was the knowledge that the clock was ticking with each day. We used even this knowledge to our advantage, making good use of our time together.
Being unable to spend the night with her was unpleasant, but we adjusted. I'd arrive around 6:30 A.M. and slip into bed beside her so we could wake up together. It was during this time that Cammy became pregnant again. This time, the news depressed her. She wanted only one baby at a time, and I was on my way to prison for up to ten years.
I didn't share Cammy's dismay over her pregnancy. As the home pregnancy kit registered dark blue, a big grin formed on my face.
"That's the bluest blue I've ever seen," I quipped. "I don't think there's any doubt."
We celebrated by moving from the condo in Brentwood to a luxury apartment in the exclusive Mirabella building on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood. I wanted a complex with security guards, and the Mirabella, with its elaborate closed-circuit television security system, seemed perfect.
One evening, as we huddled in our new bedroom, watching television, I flipped through the channels and caught the beginning of the classic movie Spartacus. I remembered having enjoyed it years before and wanted Cammy to watch it with me. For the next four hours, we sat mesmerized as Kirk Douglas and Jean Simmons played out the tragic love story of the former Thracian slave who led an uprising against the Roman Empire in 73 B.C.
I was especially moved by a scene near the end where, prior to going to battle, the powerful gladiator/warrior Spartacus tells Varinia (Simmons) that his love for her has weakened him and made him feel fear for the first time in his life. Varinia responds that he is so strong he could be weak with her. Those lines really hit home. I had avoided falling in love all my life because I equated love with weakness-specifically, the loss of control and the fear of doing jail time. I was now in the grip of a still new love and weeks away from prison. Yet somehow, I felt I would be all right. When the burdens facing me became too heavy to bear alone, I could let my guard down and tap into Cammy's strength. That didn't make me weak, and it didn't make me any less a man. Jean Simmons had assured me of that. Like Spartacus, I was strong enough to be weak with Cammy.
As I watched the tortured Spartacus dying on a cross and Varinia standing below him, crying, clutching his feet, and lifting their baby son so the gladiator could see the child before he died, my mood shifted between the sorrow of the movie, the uncertainty of my own life, and the comfort that I didn't have to face the future alone.
"With you, Cammy, I can be a man and be weak," I told her, echoing Spartacus. "I can be strong, and I can cry. I never thought I could be that way with anybody."
13
The halfway house segment of my sentence was to last three months, but my intention was to extend it for as long as possible. In fact, my ultimate goal was to spend my entire sentence that way. I argued that I couldn't earn the government its $10 million if I was in jail. Better I be given the freedom to make movies and build profitable new businesses, I reasoned.
Whether the feds intended to accept this or not, my limited freedom ended abruptly when Brian Ross and his NBC news crew flew to Los Angeles to update their viewers on "The Franzese Story." Ross and company spotted me cruising down Wilshire Boulevard in a white Eldorado convertible, all but singing Frank Sinatra's "Summer Wind." They videotaped me from a van, then later shot my marshal friends abandoning their post in front of my condominium to go on an extended coffee break. (I had told them I wasn't leaving the house anymore that day.) Ross and his producer, Ira Silverman, intercut my seemingly
carefree L.A. lifestyle with scenes of shackled inmates in grimy federal prisons. When the segment aired, Ross pointed out the contrast between how most federal prisoners do time and how I was doing time.
The moment I saw the broadcast, I knew my freedom had ended. Sure enough, the following day I received a call to report to the U.S. marshal's office in Los Angeles. I told Cammy that I just might have to return to New York. I tried to hide my great disappointment at this turn of events and my concern over what it meant, but she could tell that I was very troubled.
As I was leaving, I walked the long hallway of our condominium like I was going to the gallows. Cammy stood and watched me from the door. Just before entering the elevator, I turned and flashed her a weak smile.
"I'll be back."
I would keep that promise-but only after forty-five months.
At the marshal's office, I was cuffed, driven to the airport, and put on an American Airlines flight to New York.
"Relax, pal," I told a nervous American Airlines clerk at the gate. "I'm in for tax fraud. I'm not a murderer or anything."
The passengers similarly gawked at my handcuffs as the marshals paraded me through the cabin to my seat in the back.
In New York, I was brought before the miffed Judge Nickerson, who had no doubt seen the NBC news report. Not surprisingly, the judge ended the halfway house arrangement and ordered me back to prison. I was bused to the Otisville federal corrections facility near Middletown, New York. My freedom had ended so fast that I had been unable to schedule the water baptism I so desired.
14
Otisville wasn't bad. It had a large exercise yard and reminded me somewhat of Hofstra University. Half the prisoners were Italian, and a good percentage were mob guys or mob associates. One of my crew members, Frankie Gangster, was there. The Italians and the Chinese controlled the kitchen and took turns making lunch and dinner. The food was excellent.
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