There’s an old saying that the only way to leave the Mafia
is in a coffin. Members are pledged to a lifetime of secrecy, and
to quit would be to arouse suspicion that you are cooperating
with the police or federal agents. Such breaches of faith the mob
punishes with death.
Michael Franzese says he’s willing to take that risk. He will
not betray his former crime associates and then disappear into
the federal Witness Protection Program… .If he holds to what he
has promised.. .it will mark the first time that a high-ranking
member of the Mafia will publicly walk away from his past.
-Edward Barnes and William Shebar,
Life magazine,
December 1987
Investigative correspondent Brian Ross and producer Ira
Silverman have been tracking the mob ever since they first hooked
up as a team here at NBC fifteen years ago. They’ve met a variety
of characters in their travels, but none as slick as the one they
introduce to us tonight.. .a handsome and high-living young man as
rich as royalty, and royalty he is-a prince-of the Mafia.
-Tom Brokaw,
“Expose,”
January 1991
Within a decade, Franzese had become… one of the biggest
earners the mob had seen since Capone, and the youngest
individual in Fortune magazine’s survey of “The 50 Biggest Mafia
Bosses.”
