I've seen this guy on television a bunch of times and I'm left confused. Did he rat, because they never say that he did. It's only said that he took a plea deal and became a born again Christian. Did he do his time and walk away from the life? Is that what makes him unique? If he didn't rat, why doesn't he get along with his father anymore? They never say how he made his bones. Did he kill anyone, or was he inducted because of his father's status? I was reading that his brother was a rat. But he wasn't bringing in the money Michael was, he was a junkie that saved his own neck by ratting on the father.

In the life, Michael was definitely considered a rat. He didn't testify against any mob guys, but he did testify against Norby Walters. Plus, he gave a lot of mob info, even mob hits. He claims he wasn't a part of any personally, but knew about them. Sal Micciotta claims Michael was the driver of a crash car on the Larry Champagne hit. Big Sal claims Mike wanted to be the shooter, but Big Sal did the hit while Mike drove a crash car afterwards. The Smoking Gun has some documents on Franzese. He gave up info on hits and who was made with him at his making ceremony. Just go to the website. Type in Franzese.

Didn't know about those Smoking Gun documents. Thanks yatescj7.

Archives
Crime Figure Testifies to Link With Sports Agent
By STEVE FIFFER, Special to the New York Times
Published: March 15, 1989


In a case involving Federal racketeering charges against sports agents, a jury heard testimony today from a man who described himself as a member of the Colombo crime family and said he was a silent partner in the sports-agency business of Norby Walters.

Mr. Walters and Lloyd Bloom, another agent, are standing trial on racketeering and mail-fraud charges in connection with representation of several athletes who were signed to contracts before their college eligibility expired.

The Government, in a case expected to provide a window onto abuses of big-time sports in higher education, contends that the signings and the loaning of money to the athletes by Mr. Walters and Mr. Bloom rendered the athletes ineligible and thus defrauded several universities of the scholarships they had awarded the athletes.

Today's witness in the case, where the charges are similar to those applied to Wall Street wheeling and dealing and to organized crime, was Michael Franzese, who said he was a captain in the Colombo organization.


Testifying under a grant of immunity before a packed courtroom, the dapper Mr. Franzese, who is serving a 10-year Federal sentence on racketeering and tax-evasion charges and a concurrent nine-year Florida sentence for racketeering, said that as a silent partner, he pressured no athletes for Mr. Walters, who is a lifelong friends. He explained that he and Mr. Walters had long been associated in the music business, in which Mr. Walters was a prominent booking agent, with such clients as the singer Dionne Warwick.

Mr. Franzese, who is 37 years old, indicated that his father, John (Sonny) Franzese, who is also reputed to be a member of the Colombo crime family and has also served time in prison, was also one of Mr. Walters's associates in the music business.

Under questioning by the prosecutor, Anton Valukas, Mr. Franzese said sitated that in late 1984, he met Mr. Walters, at the agent's request, in the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel in California.

At that time, Mr. Franzese said, Mr. Walters indicated that he wanted to duplicate his success in representing black entertainers by representing top black college athletes when they entered the National Football League.

''He asked me to participate in some way, and I told him I'd be interested,'' Mr. Franzese said. 'Using Cash'

The two met again early in 1985, at Mr. Walters's Manhattan office, and at that time, Mr. Franzese said, Mr. Walters told Mr. Franzese ''he would be using cash to sign athletes.'' Mr. Franzese said he agreed to provide Mr. Walters $50,000 in return for a 25 percent interest in the new sports agency.

At a third meeting, in July 1985, Mr. Franzese said, his brother-in-law, Dino Garcia, handed Mr. Walters a brown paper bag containing $50,000 in cash, in Mr. Franzese's presence. The money was from Mr. Franzese, who explained to the court that because of the nature of his business, he did not like to carry money himself.

Mr. Franzese said his role in the agency was not to be limited to that of investor. ''I was to continue to perform the same services I always provided for him,'' Mr. Franzese said, referring to Mr. Walters.

Those duties, in light of Mr. Franzese's testimony, apparently included trying to persuade recalcitrant business associates and would-be business associates of Mr. Walters to agree to the agent's business propositions.

Mr. Franzese testified that on several occasions he paid calls to such associates with Mr. Walters, and that he believed these individuals knew of his organized-crime ties. In 1981, when the singer Michael Jackson and his brothers were considering a national tour, Mr. Franzese, at Mr. Walters's request, talked to the Jacksons' manager.

''I explained that if Norby wasn't involved with the tour in some manner, then there might not be a tour,'' Mr. Franzese said. The tour eventually proceeded without the agent's involvement.

Mr. Franzese was apparently more successful in 1982 in representing Mr. Walters's interests to Ms. Warwick's manager. The manager had indicated his desire to terminate Mr. Walters as the singer's booking agent, but after Mr. Franzese spoke on the agent's behalf, Mr. Walters continued in his role.

Under cross-examination by attorneys for Mr. Walters and Mr. Bloom, Mr. Franzese, who was indicted in 1985 on 14 counts including racketeering, counterfeiting, extortion and tax evasion and pleaded guilty to two of the counts in 1986, said that he never exerted pressure on any of the athletes with whom the agents had been dealing.

The Government contends that while Mr. Franzese might not have had direct contact with the athletes, Mr. Walters invoked Mr. Franzese's name in threatening the athletes when they indicated they wished to terminate their agreements with the agents.

Under cross-examination by Mr. Walters's attorney, Robert Gold, who tried to challenge Mr. Franzese's credibility, Mr. Franzese admitted that he became a Federal informer in February 1986 and that his sentencing in connection with the charges for which he pleaded guilty was contingent upon his cooperation with the Government in several investigations.

He stated that he had informed the Government of meetings at which Carmine Persico and top leaders of New York's five organized-crime families discussed taking retaliatory measures against Federal agents.

Mr. Franzese admitted to Mr. Gold that he lied at a Federal detention hearing and also lied in a deposition given to the Government in April 1986, when he did not mention his holdings in Mr. Walters's sports agency. ''At that time, being a member of a organized-crime family did not allow me to tell the truth,'' he explained.

The trial will resume Wednesday. Maurice Douglas, a defensive back for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League, who is one of the athletes whom Walters is alleged to have threatened by invoking Franzese's name, is expected to testify for the Government.

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/15/sports/crime-figure-testifies-to-link-with-sports-agent.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/25/nyregi...o-the-past.html

New York Times
Search All NYTimes.com
Go
Archives
A 19-Year-Old F.B.I. Videotape Keeps Pulling Sharpton Back to the Past
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL and SUSAN SAULNY
Published: July 25, 2002
EMAIL
PRINT
The Rev. Al Sharpton once said he was created with no reverse in his transmission, but if so, he has shown he can brake suddenly and make U-turns.
In the latest test of his adroitness, Mr. Sharpton has been responding to a secretly recorded 1983 F.B.I. videotape, included in an HBO report this week, that depicts him mostly listening but sometimes responding without commitment to an undercover agent masquerading as a Latin American drug lord offering to sell him kilos of cocaine.
Yesterday, Mr. Sharpton, 46, announced at State Supreme Court in Manhattan that he had filed a $1 billion lawsuit against HBO and its parent company, AOL Time Warner, contending that he had been smeared by ''dirty tricks'' intended to derail his campaign for the presidency. Also named as defendants were the HBO show, ''Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel;'' the reporter, Bernard Goldberg; and Michael Franzese, a former Colombo family Mafia captain who became a government informant.
''They may think they have given me a stumbling block,'' Mr. Sharpton said on the courthouse steps, entering the building and then returning. ''They will see it turned into a steppingstone.''

He contended that the segment of three and a half minutes shown nationally Tuesday night distorted the encounter and omitted material, including a second tape, that made it clear he would have nothing to do with drugs.
He also questioned why the 19-year-old tape, written about in the 1980's, had now reappeared. ''For whom and for what?'' he demanded.
A spokesman for HBO, Ray Stallone, called the lawsuit ''so silly that it is unworthy of comment.''
He called the tape ''an integral part of the story we presented'' and said Mr. Sharpton's response was included in its report. As for his statement that there was a second and exculpatory videotape, Mr. Stallone said, ''We indicated to him that we would welcome the chance to see it.''
It was hardly the first time that the tape and others have made trouble for Mr. Sharpton.
Just 10 years ago this summer, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, looking into reports of corruption in boxing, played audio and videotapes growing out of a 1980 F.B.I. investigation called Crown Royal.
On one of the tapes, presented by a former F.B.I. agent, Joseph A. Spinelli, who was then the New York State inspector general under Gov. Mario Cuomo, Mr. Sharpton is shown meeting with the undercover agent -- a supposed drug kingpin named Victor Quintana -- and a reputed mobster, Danny Pagano, discussing ways of approaching the boxing promoter Don King to arrange bouts and launder money.
On the tape, Mr. Sharpton tells the agent that he would get a ''fair deal'' from Mr. King because of Mr. Pagano's underworld connections.
At the same Senate hearing, Mr. Franzese, who had been caught in an F.B.I. sting and ended up cooperating with the government, testified that he had used Mr. Sharpton to get close to Mr. King and he added: ''I knew Sharpton and was aware that he was associated with people in the Genovese family, in particular with family soldier Danny Pagano.''
Mr. Franzese also testified that Mr. Sharpton had arranged a meeting with him on Jan. 12, 1983, in Mr. King's Manhattan office where Mr. Franzese reported that his efforts had been blessed by mob bosses in Cleveland.
At the time, Mr. Sharpton denied that he consorted with mobsters, saying he knew nothing of the backgrounds of those he met with. He said he had not been charged with any crime and called allegations from people like Mr. Franzese ''fabrications.''
Over the years, Mr. Spinelli has often cited Mr. Sharpton's involvement in his boxing investigation and in 1991, as inspector general, wrote an article in Sports Illustrated recounting it in detail. He said the F.B.I. case was dropped after a Korean boxer died in a title bout and the bureau feared that it was too risky for the F.B.I. to appear to be involved in promoting fights.
Mr. Spinelli, who now works at the accounting firm KPMG, did not return calls yesterday.
The existence of the other 1983 videotape showing Mr. Sharpton listening to the undercover agent offering cocaine and saying at one point ''I hear you'' was disclosed in articles in Newsday several years later. Law enforcement officials later told The New York Times that while Mr. Sharpton could not be prosecuted for what he said on the tape, they had bluffed him shortly after the tape was made into believing that he faced charges and so persuaded him to become a federal informant. They said he provided information about meetings held in the basement of Danny Pagano's father, Joseph, also reputed to be a mobster, information that led to the planting of a court-authorized listening device there. Joseph Pagano died before any charges were filed.
At the time of the Newsday article, Mr. Sharpton denied as ''ludicrous'' any statement that he had become an F.B.I. informant, but said that he had tapped his own phone to gather information on neighborhood drug dealers.
Andrew J. Maloney, who was serving as the United States attorney in Brooklyn, recalled yesterday that after that episode, Mr. Sharpton, facing state charges of tax evasion -- he was acquitted -- had visited Mr. Maloney's office to offer to provide certain information that Mr. Maloney yesterday declined to detail.
Newsday reported Mr. Sharpton's offer at the time. Mr. Sharpton said it concerned efforts to curb crack trafficking. Prosecutors, however, disagreed and said the information involved activities of an unidentified black leader.
At the time, The Times asked Mr. Sharpton whether he would instruct Mr. Maloney to disclose his conversations with the office. Mr. Sharpton said he would. Then he sent a note voiding his authorization.
Photos: At left, the Rev. Al Sharpton was greeted by a supporter after suing HBO and AOL Time Warner over HBO's broadcast of a 1983 F.B.I. tape in which an undercover agent offered Mr. Sharpton a drug deal. Above, Mr. Sharpton with the boxing promoter Don King, right, in 1997. The F.B.I. had taped him in an investigation of boxing. (Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times); (Michael E. Palmer for The New York Times)

I could have sworn on a nat geo special they just had on that he paid his way out, or they were insinuating that, and because of fuel scam he had plenty to pay his way out after he plead guilty

Paid his way out of what Merlino? The mob?

That's how I interpreted it. They never mentioned him informing. Thanks for the clarification.

Yes out of the mob, that is what they insinuated on the nat geo mob series that was replayed last weekend, I believe they asked him if he paid his way out and he didn't deny it nor confirm it

He's one of those rats with a small r. I'm not sure if his information was ever enough to hurt any made guy, but he certainly attempted to cooperate. When the feds found out he wasn't willing to go all the way and testify against mob members, they violated him. He never got a new name or anything like that. I put him in the same category as John Gotti, Jr., another rat with a small r.

What about Wayne Grande in Philadelphia? He supposedly didn't rat on mobsters while in prison. Why is he considered persona non grata?

If you are expecting any truths from the FBI that does not benefit them in someway to know if a guy is a rat or not you will never get the truth .

The FBI is the biggest crime family in the United States of America so just because he was not takin into the witness protection program and given a new name and identity does not mean that he did not give them information .

The Feds will do and say anything just look close into the Whitey Bulger story and you will see the Feds are a crime family to the top.

And I don't mean Conolly he is small potatoes !!!

On that episode of locked up abroad Henry Hill says that Franzese was an informant !!

i saw that too Di.

You never admit the existence of our thing.

Franzese can't come to our social club anymore, I know that much.

That being said, I enjoyed his book. There's also a video on youtube of him on CBS Sports I think breaking down how the Colombos used to get college basketball players in their pocket.

Yeah, it was a good episode...Seems Franzese saved Hill's azz..Not the best way to pay him back !! lol

serp, boy you said it ! just finished the book "whitey bulger" and I was shocked! I have read over a hundred O.C. books, and never could I believe how the FBI condoned his 18 murders.... and in some cases abeted his murders, agent Connolly went to prison for 40yrs..... and many more were involved... if anyone doubts your conclusions have them read the book.

ralphie, is there such a thing as a rat with a small r? you are either a snitch or you are stand-up. small r or big r, a rat is a rat is a rat.

Is there a difference between Sal Vitale and Michael Franzese? I would say huge. One rat caused a lot of damage and one didn't. Big rat..small rat.simplez

Agree Binnie.

And yet Connolly had a slew of Feds rallying to have him released, including Joe Pistone

MIAMI—More than 100 former FBI agents, including the one whose undercover work inspired the movie "Donnie Brasco," are fighting for the release of a colleague convicted of corruption and of helping Boston's Irish-American mob murder a South Florida gambling executive.

http://archive.boston.com/news/local/mas...irly_convicted/

Any of franzese's books any good?

Are they considered to be factual or just bullshit to make a payday?

If anyone's interested in other stories about feds looking the other way at murders committed by their informants, google some of the stories on Operation Black Widow, which targeted the Nuestra Familia in California.

I read his first book and it was a good read...He's not like the other morons who brag about hurting people, grossly exaggerating their importance and how much money they made or how Elizabeth Taylor and Raquel Welch wanted to bang them etc...

He just gives his story !!

Carmine persico order his murder from prison in cali think Lompoc also dempted his dad to a soldier and took away all his big income. Guess the sonny had a loyal crew on long island that surported him anyway around 1988. The snake must have forgave him making him the official underboss around 2003. Theres some funny articles about vinny gorgeous meeting him like hes a babe ruth type. But he calls him a nutcase to.

I also think michael worked out some deal with the persico family threw back channels maybe like heres a quarter mill to allie boy leave me alone. Maybe.

Michael Franzese has a great new scam. He convinces dumb Christians to buy his book, donate money to him and hire him to give talks. He's 100% a con man and his new victims are the most gullible people in the world: Born Again Suckers.

No, no, not at all. The mob would have made that offer, no doubt. But as soon as he gave them say 10 million, The Snake would've had him whacked anyway on principle. And Franzese was sharp anyways he would've known that it would be money down the drain. He wouldn't be dumb enough to fall for that. Franzese got away with it because he was in the right era. He stayed away from all the danger zones until the times eventually changed and he adapted with them.

inexcuseable bean, the agent connely was deeply involved in murders in boston, even framing 4 men for murder, he deserves his 40 yrs. dirty agents like him should get the max.