Transcription
Michael Frances is a very familiar face to uncensored viewers, millions of whom saw his chilling account of being a real-life mob boss on my show. I always enjoy talking to him because he's disarmingly honest and, let's face it, he has some riveting stories to tell. Well, Bianca Noel has put together a gripping true crime deep dive into the history of the mafia over on History Uncensored, and I had to share her cracking interview with Frances himself.
"That discrepancy in age and opportunity that you were just describing is really there from the very beginning of your mafia career, isn't it? Because when you were made, you were made alongside guys that had been waiting to be made for all of these years because they closed the books. Could you tell me a little bit about that initiation ceremony and what you understood that the parts of the ritual meant? Like, what did it symbolize to you?"
"Yeah. Well, my, uh, you know, I was made in 1975. Actually, just celebrated, I would say, 50 years, uh, from the night I was made. It was October 31st, 1975. And, you know, I mean, I was exhilarated that night. It was a tremendous feeling. I was a recruit for about two and a half years prior to that. So, I had to prove myself, you know, worthy to become a member. And when I got in, it was very exciting. I felt, hey, I was, you know, part of a brotherhood that my dad was part of. There was even more of a, a tight relationship now between us. Um, I was entering a life of honor and respect, and it was, it was exhilarating, and, you know, I took that oath very seriously. It was a very solemn ceremony. I mean, they wanted you to understand the seriousness of what you were getting involved in. This was a lifetime commitment. There was no exit. Uh, we took an oath of *omertà*, meaning, you know, a lot of people think that that oath means that you're taking an oath to lie, steal, and kill. It's not that at all. It's an oath of silence. You're not even supposed to admit that the life exists ever. You're not supposed to obviously betray it in any way or betray any of the members. So, um, I understood it to be that that night, and, um, you know, I was totally committed to being the best possible mob guy I could be. I mean, that's what it meant to me."
"What else happened in the ceremony? The, the burning of the saint. Anything else that symbolized the step that you were taking?"
"Well, yeah. They took a knife and a and a pen and actually pricked my finger and slid the knife over it. So, they drew some blood. The blood dropped on the floor. Then they took a picture of a, a saint. It was a Catholic altar card. And put it on my hands and lit it a flame. And it, it burned quickly. It didn't hurt. That was merely symbolic. And he said, 'Tonight, Michael Francis, you are born again into a new life into *Cosa Nostra*. Violate what you know about this life. Betray your brothers, and you'll die and burn in hell like the saint is burning in your hands.' And he said, 'Do you accept?' And I said, 'Yes, I do.' And that's it. It's a very quick ritual. Uh, but it's very foreboding. You understood, you know, what you were getting involved in at that moment. And, uh, you know, it's a night I'll never forget."
"And you, you mentioned that part of a murder is to never admit that the life even exists. And I remember hearing you say before that you were interviewed when you were in prison and you did what you thought you were supposed to do, which is to not really talk about the life at all or to say that, um, you were, you know, you were leaving and you wanted nothing to do with it. Do you remember the first time that you did publicly admit that the life existed?"
"Um, yeah, it was, it was, it was when I got out of prison and I was really totally committed to walking away, you know, and I, I don't remember the exact year. I think it was in, in '90, maybe mid-'90s, '95, when I finally said, you know, 'Yeah, that's it.' And I'll admit that the life exists. Um, you know, I actually talked to the government about things that I had done. You know, the government had put a lot of pressure on me. They wanted me to become a major witness because when I did walk away, there was a major story written about it in *Life* magazine. And, you know, he took his own take on it. Um, but it made it sound like when people walk away, they normally enter a witness protection program, become witnesses. Well, that's not what I wanted to do, and that's not what I did. Uh, but they made it sound like I was doing that. So immediately the boss of my family got very nervous, and I put a contract on my life. The FBI, whether they were making this up or not, they came in and said, 'Listen, we got word from our informants.' And, uh, you know, they put a contract on your life. Your father went along with the contract. He was very upset with you. And, uh, so they put all of this stuff in my head, and I wasn't really buying into it. Uh, but I had committed to walking away at that point. So, uh, I talked about the life, but, um, you know, really that was the extent of it, and, uh, you know, I wanted the government at that time to really understand that I was done. I wasn't going back."
"Because I became a major target. I mean, I, I was arrested 18 times. I had seven indictments. I had two federal racketeering cases. I had one state racketeering case in the state of Florida. I went to trial five times throughout my tenure in that life. So, they were never going to let me go. Never. And I just wanted them to understand I'm really done. So, yeah, I'll talk to you. Uh, I don't want to put people in prison. I'm not doing that. They were very upset that I didn't go the distance with them. They threw me back in prison as a result. Kept me in solitary confinement because of it. But, um, you know, in the end, it all worked out for me. I went through probably 10 or 12 years of, of a real struggle as a result of it. But it ended up saving my life."
"Obviously, you didn't flip, but many guys did. And at that point, after RICO, with these extremely long sentences that so many people were being handed, how did you feel when people that you knew did that? Did you understand, or could you not, because it's something that you would never do?"
"Well, it, it was something that I wasn't going to do, you know. I didn't have it in me to put other people in prison, you know, and when I was talking to the government, there were limits that I knew that I could do. I, I basically, the government admitted that I kind of outsmarted them because I gave them just enough, but never enough to put somebody in prison. And to me, that's the ultimate. You don't want to put people in prison. That's it. I spoke about things that people already knew about. And, um, you know, the government was very upset with me. That's when they threw me back in prison for, you know, on a parole violation for another four years. But, you know, um, look, I, I, I have never seen an informant, and I've had many informants against me and against my dad, get on the witness stand, put their left hand on the Bible, right hand swear to tell the truth, and then lie. And most informants, and most people that enter the program, they do it because they don't want to go to prison. And they can make all the excuses that they want. They say the life treated them bad and all of this, but they just don't want to go to prison. And the RICO Act, you know, when you got indicted under RICO, you're facing a lifetime of prison. And it created a lot of informants. Do I agree with it? No. I mean, I, I don't, you know, there was, there was guys that wired themselves up and became government agents to put other people in trouble that these were their brothers. They did things together, and you're engaging them in more criminal activity, but you're not going to get in trouble because you're now working for the government, and you're doing it all to put these people away and for you to get out of prison. So, I, I can't justify that. I, I really can't. I mean, if there was a real moral issue, or if somebody's family was devastated as a result, we didn't go after families. We didn't hurt family members. So nobody really has that excuse. So you were part of that life. You know, you got to, you got to take the good with the bad with it. And to blame the life and say, 'Well, they didn't treat me right.' Well, come on. We're street guys. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that goes on in that life that shouldn't go on, but we signed up for it. So, if you couldn't navigate it smartly, and your only out was to put other people in trouble and put them in jail to save yourself, I, I can't agree with that. I just can't."
"Yeah. Like a live by the sword, die by the sword mentality if you can't outsmart them."
"How early did you recognize that the life was in massive trouble?"
"Well, I, I really realized it when, when the RICO Act came in because guys were becoming informants left and right, and, uh, I just saw it. I said, 'People are not going to stand up under this amount of time.' You know, you give a guy like me 5, 10 years, even 15, you know, you do, you do, uh, 60, 70% of that with parole. Anybody can do that time, and you, you realize it. It's part of the life. But when you start putting guys away for 25, 30, 50, 100 years with no chance of parole, it's, it's totally different. You know, I always say this, and, and this is my take on it. Fear did keep people in line. You know, uh, Chazz Palminteri, I think you know who he is. He, uh, the movie *The Bronx Tale*. There's a line in *The Bronx Tale* where the little young guy asks the mob boss there, Chazz, 'Is it better to be loved or feared?' And he said, 'Well, it's better to be feared.' And Chazz is a friend of mine. I talked to him about that. Again, he's not involved in the life, but I said, 'Chazz, what do you think? You think it's better to be feared or to be loved in that life?' He said, 'Oh, it's better to be feared.' I said, 'Chazz, you're wrong.' He said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'Fear did keep people in line to a certain extent.' But what happened is the fear of the mob and retribution was transferred to the fear of the government when you're going away for the rest of your life. So people started to turn as a result of that. So fear only works to a certain point. But when you love somebody, you're more apt to be loyal to them and not to hurt them. At least that's how I feel. I'm not going to hurt somebody I love. But somebody I'm feared, if I'm not afraid of them anymore, I'll act. And that's what happened in that life. People just got afraid of going to jail forever. They didn't love the boss. They didn't love them. They were kept in line because that's part of the life. But that's what really had the life fall apart. The life that I knew and that I was part of is not the same today, and it'll never be the same in my opinion."
"That's fascinating to me because it's like a, it's like a mafia twist on Machiavelli, like those precise."