ENCORE | An Interview with Michael Franzese on Redemption, Faith, and Family - The Greg Laurie Show

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Life audio. Okay, I want you to stop and think
about someone that you know that is not a believer
in Jesus Christ and imagine them carrying a Bible, going
to church saying Praise the Lord. Can you think of
someone we all know people that seem to be unreachable. Well,

(00:30):
I'm going to do an interview in a few moments
with someone that fits that category. His name is Michael Frenzies.
He was a member of the Colombo crime family. He
was a mobster, a good fella, the real deal, and
he is one of the most amazing conversion stories I've

(00:51):
ever heard. I've had the opportunity to interview some pretty
interesting people like Alice Cooper, rock star extraordinaire, Darryl Strawberry,
famous for his great exploits as a baseball player, but
all so infamous for what happened off the field, being
arrested for drugs and other things, and how God reached them.

(01:13):
But the story of Michael Frenzies, to me, is one
of the most amazing stories of all and I hope
that it will inspire you to continue to pray for
people you know that don't know the Lord. So here's
the thought. Get someone you know that you can't imagine
becoming a Christian and get them to watch this podcast.

(01:36):
Try to get them to watch it all the way through.
And I think as you hear the story of the
mobster who became a believer, you will be amazed. So
here we go, Michael Frenzies. So you're raised in a

(02:07):
home where your father is a mobster? Is that the
right word to use for him, Sunny Frenzies? And how
would you describe what he did for the Columbus crime family.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
My dad was the underboss, which means he was the
second in command. Oh wow, So he was the allegedly
the closest to the boss.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yes, and the boss died, does he immediately become the
dawn of the family.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Not necessarily. I mean he would be first in line,
but it's there's a lot of politics involved.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, you know so.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
But in my father's case, he would have been because
he was popular and well liked among the men's so
he would have been. He would have been the next two. Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Was he an enforcer? Didn't you tell me that once?

Speaker 2 (02:53):
You know he was by reputation he was because my
dad was a pretty tough guy.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Had to find the enforcer.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
You know, he made sure that people stayed in line
in the family, and if it was any dirty work
to be done, he wouldn't handle it either himself or
he would put the team together to do it.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
When did you become aware of the fact that this
is what your father did was because I remember you
told me he would show up at your baseball games
and he would maybe have some guys with him and
tell me how that played out.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
But you know, you know, going back to my earliest
memory of something strange with my dad, we were living
in Brooklyn and for some reason he moved us out
to Long Island to my grandmother's house, my mother's mother
and father, and he was gone for a couple of days.
And I'm like four years old, but I have a
memory of this. For some reason, this specific incident, we

(03:47):
hadn't seen him, and then one morning he comes all
of a sudden. He hadn't shared my father, had a
heavy beard, he hadn't shaved. He came in the house,
he embraced my mother. I was sitting on the steps
and I was watching this and then I noticed his
right hand guy who you know, later on I knew
he was his right hand guy Joey was out on

(04:08):
the porch kind of watching things, you know, while my
dad was inside. And then he came over and embraced
me and hugged me. I miscious on all that, and
then he left. And when I found out later, our
family was at war during that time, and so they
were taken to the mattresses, as they say, and there
was it was quite a while that he was gone.
We wouldn't see him that much. So that was the

(04:28):
first realization. If for some reason, Greg that sticks out.
I never forgot that. And I was like four years.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Old, and you really loved your dad and admired him.
He did, yes, When you finally became aware of what
he did, did you say, I want to be like
my dad when I grow up, I want to follow
his path, or you more like Michael Carleone who was
pursuing a different path, you know, because his father, Veto
didn't want him in the family business, so to speak.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Pretty much the same my dad didn't want me now.
He wanted me to go to school and be a doctor.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Oh doctor, yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
He said, you know, you're going to be the first
professional in the family. He thought I had it in me.
I was a pretty good student. So I never had
any interest in following in his footsteps in the life.
But I did want to be like him because I
really admired him.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
You know.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
But if you would have said to me at that age,
what did I want to be? I wanted to play
center field for the New York Yankees like Mickey Manno
was my idol back then. So no, I had no
interest in that, but I did want to follow my
dad's presence. Yes, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, now you felt yourself pulled into this life as
you call it, right, explain what you call this life?
And La Cosa Nostra and all of that.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Well, you know, cousin Austro mafia. It's a very real
criminal organization, I'd have to say that, and very big
presence in New York. There are actually five distinct cousin
Aster families in New York. Nine throughout the country, but
five in New York. New York is really the stronghold
exact as they did they do, but not not the same.

(06:02):
So five families, five families, And you know, my childhood
was very turbulent because my dad kept getting arrested and dieted,
going to jail, going to trials. So I witnessed that
my whole young life, and so I knew what the
life was about. Obviously, my dad was a very high
profile figure, always in front of the media. You know,
they were always writing about him, so it was hard

(06:24):
not to know about him. As far as the baseball games,
you know, I said, he would never miss a game,
no matter what he was doing. He'd always pull up
in a big black Cadillac or a black plan remember
those nineteen sixty Cadillacts. Great, they were huge, right, So
he pulled right up to the field, get out of
the car. You'd have five or six guys with him.
I'd be up to bat. The umpire would never call

(06:45):
strike three on me when he seen my father walking
up into the stands. So he was very supportive in
that way, you know. But I knew everything that was
going on. So I was visiting him in jail and
going to the trials and all that stuff. But what
happened is he went to trial three times, very serious crimes,
grand larceny twice, murder once, but he was acquitted in
all of them. But then in sixty six they indicted

(07:07):
him in federal court from masterminding in nationwide during the
bank robberies. He gets convicted, gets sentenced to fifty years
in prison, and goes off to jail. In prison, I
should say in nineteen seventy, and that's when I was
a pre med student at hof Street University in New
York and Joe Columbo was a boss of my family then,
and I knew him well. He kind of took me

(07:28):
under his wing. He became another mentor of mine. And
then I met a lot of my dad's friends. And
you know, Mike, if you don't help your father out,
he's going to die in prison. Because Greg that particular
crime that my dad did forty years on, he actually
did forty he was innocent ofough. My dad was not
a bank robber, and I'll take that to my grave.
Investigated the case the whole thing. So I went to

(07:50):
visit him in Levenworth and I said, if I don't
help you out, you're going to die in here. I'm
not going to go to school anymore. And we kind
of argued. He wasn't for it, but then he kind
of threw his hands up. You know, I was a
pretty headstrong kid, and he said, if you're going to
be on the street. I want you on the street
the right way, and his mind, the right way was
to become a member of his life. So at that
time he proposed me for membership. Because you know, you

(08:12):
can't just go up to somebody and say, hey, I'd
like to join, you know, somebody has to propose you
and vouch for you. In my case, it was my dad,
And there's a lot of nepotism in that life. A
lot of fathers bring their sons and their relatives in
basically for security reasons. You figure you're going to stand up,
you're not going to cause trouble. So that's how it
started for me. I was twenty one.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
And there's a phrase you've told me about when you
say he's a friend of ours, or there's a variation
on the way you introduce some other. Let's say you
bring me to one of your mobster friends and I'm
not in this life, how would you introduce me?

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Well, if you weren't in a life, I say this
is a friend of mine.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Greg, Okay, Now, if I am in this life, how
would you introduce you?

Speaker 2 (08:53):
See, this is a friend of ours.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
Okay, forget about it, say that, say it, Get about
it forget about it.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Everybody says that, Yeah, it.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Seems like when you go into New Jersey, don't they
actually have that on their sign. They've totally embraced forget
about It.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
So I have to tell you when Donny Brasco came out,
I went to see it with Cammy and when what
was his name? They played Donny Brasco. When he got
into that scene and said forget about it, I was
the only one in the movie that was laughing at
I understand that. Yeah, Johnny Depp, I understood it. What
are you laughing about us, cam you don't get it?

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah? So Patino and I think you told me that
you felt that was the most realistic mob film because
it was actually taking Donnie Brasco. That was his name.
He was as an FBI agent, was wearing a wire,
so a lot of the dialogue in Donny Brasco was
real dialogue from that life.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
I thought it was Paccino's best role because I knew
Lefty Riggerio, the character he played, and he just killed it.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
He was ter you knew the actual person, yes, wow,
And of course he knew Joe Colombo from the Columbu
Crimefach we're up there. When Joe was shot.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
I was twelve steps away from him he got shot,
and it was the second time I witnessed something like that,
and it was pretty eye opening.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
People have such a fascination with mob films, and of course,
of course these has made many of them, and Coppola,
of course Godfather one and two. Of all the mob films,
what do you think was the most realistic and what
is maybe the most unrealistic?

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well this is going to throw you a little bit,
but the most realistic mob film, in my opinion, was
a nineteen ninety six Gotti HBO movie with Armand Descante
and Anthony Quinn. It was taken right from the surveillance
tapes and the recordings, and it was so brilliantly acted.

(10:53):
There was a scene in there that gave me the chills.
It was so realistic. And that's when Anthony Quinn, who
played what's your Name again? Dela Crotch Neil Delacrotch, she
was the underboss in that position, and when he came
in and told Gotti, armand de Santi that he saved
his life last night with the boss. But if he

(11:13):
hadn't said, if the boss would have said you got
to go. He said, I would have come in here
and you would have went. But the way he said it,
it was so realistic. It just gave me the chills.
It was very realistic movie, very well done. I mean
they were a number then, But that's my number one.
People get shocked when I say that, But that's my
number one.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
What would be like two and three?

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Donny Brasco very realistic Goodfellas obviously.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Because that was a real guy. Henry Hill.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Oh yeah, all those characters were real. Jimmy Burke was real,
Paulie was real, and I knew them all. That's why
they put my name in that film.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah. There's a scene in Goodfellas in the beginning of
the film where the cameras panning down and they were
introducing people sitting at the bar, and they actually used
your name in the film.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yes, And I was kind of stunned when I saw that,
because I said, that's a different that was coming.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
No, you're sitting in the theater and yes, that comes
on and you you didn't know that was going to happen,
know it? Wow?

Speaker 2 (12:08):
And Cammy was like, we actually got up and left
because that was such a graphic film. I didn't know
what else was going to happen on so I said,
can we got to go because she doesn't like to
see any of that. So we left. But I called
the writer up. It was a friend of mine, Nick Poledge,
and I said, Nick, why'd you put me in that film? He'sid, well,
you knew everybody and you got name value, and so
we put you in. I said, well, can you warn
me next time?

Speaker 1 (12:29):
And like, how accurate were the Godfather films?

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Brilliantly done? I mean the acting was just so amazing,
but not really accurate. You know, the son doesn't take
all for the father in a case like that, you know,
the boss coming in, and there was some things that
weren't accurate, but pretty much so it showed you a
good depiction of the life.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Did I hear somewhere that that? Because there's there was
a series made? Was it called The Offer? Yeah? And
that was like your era, because your era was the
eighties there and when they were making The Godfather and.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
They actually that was the seventies, oh.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
The seventies right, and they needed to get approval or
cooperation from Joe Colombo and so that was you were
around in that very time.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Was through that whole thing. I love that series. By
the way, the offer it wasn't totally realistic, but it
was really well done. But yeah, what happened when Joe
Columbo had the Italian American Civil Rights League and heard
that that movie was coming out. He was protesting it
and causing a lot of trouble. So they had to
really solve it with him or that film wouldn't have
been made. So Joe Columbo played a major role in

(13:35):
that film.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Now you travel around the world telling your amazing story,
your unique story. I've never heard a story like yours
before with the mob, with the mafia globally, not just
in America. What is it that fascinates people about that?
You know?

Speaker 2 (13:50):
I think the media had a lot to do with it, obviously,
And some of these figures are bigger than life, you know.
I'll give you an example. About six or seven months ago,
I was in a market and I was at the
checkout counter. I noticed on the magazine rack there was
an al capone on the cover of the magazine. So
I'm looking for content all the time on my channel,
so I went and picked it up. The entire magazine
was on al Caholm. Now he's dead almost one hundred years, wow,

(14:14):
one hundred years. But it was fascinating some of the
things that I read there. So it just never goes away.
You know, guys like John Gotti and Joey Colombo and
all of these guys. There's really no other criminal organization
that has characters like that, and I think that's what
it is. And you know, look, a lot of these
younger people, when I go into prisons and juvenile halls,

(14:37):
they say, come on, you know, you had all the money,
you had, the cars, you had, the girls, you had
all of this, and they've seen it from the movies.
And I say, I understand that, but do you see
the end of the movie who got killed? Who became
an informant? They don't even look at that. They're just
fascinated by what they see. That's glamorous, and that's the
whole world.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Did you see The Untouchables?

Speaker 2 (14:57):
I did?

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, yeah, So I wonder how accurate that was? Not? Really?
Oh really it was.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
No elliot ness was made to be big, good than life.
He really wasn't the one that brought al Capone down.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
All rightly. Who did it?

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Was a treasury department, but it wasn't him, and it
was an IRS type of case. You know, it didn't
have the IRS back then whose treasury?

Speaker 1 (15:17):
So coming back to your story, so you're following in
your fall father's footsteps. You're going to become a made man.
So what is the process of having that happened to you?
And I remember you told me a story about what
when you were initiated. Tell me what happens when you

(15:38):
become a part of the mob.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Well, after a kind of a recruit period where you
have to prove yourself worthy to them, and if that happens,
then there's an initiation, you take an oath, and mine
happened on Halloween night, nineteen seventy five. And there was
an expression before the seventies that the books were closed.
They weren't making any new guys for security reasons. In

(16:02):
the seventies, they opened the books and they were starting
to bring guys. So I was one of the first
that came in. And they did that really out of
respect for my dad, because he needed me and he
wanted me involved. So it was Halloween night. We walked
into a room individually, the six of us. The boss
was seated at the head of a horseshoe configuration, the
underboss in the consulgieri, another high profile position with his

(16:27):
left and right, and all the carp of Re James,
our captains were alongside it, and we had about fifteen
in our family at that point. Walked down the aisle,
stood in front of the boss, held out my hand.
He took a knife, cut my finger. Some blood dropped
on the floor. I cupped my hands. He took a
picture of a saint Catholic al to God, put it
in my hands, lited a flame. It didn't hurt, burned quickly.
It was merely symbolic. And he said, tonight, Michael Francis,

(16:49):
you are born again into a new life, into coshostrup.
Violate what you know about this life, betray your brothers.
You will die and burn in hell like this saint
is burning in your hands. Do you accept? Yes, I do.
That's it.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yet here you sit alive telling this story. When there
was a list made of the top mafia bossas or mobsters,
and you were on that list, and I think most
of them are dead, and yet here alive. Who was
on that list? And what was that about?

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Whether it was it was Fortune magazine, wrote an article
in eighty six. It was like half the magazine, a
huge article, and they featured six or the fifty of
us on there. I was one of the six, and
they had a chart with the fiftieth cooding to rank
wealth and power. And I was the youngest guy on
the list. I was number eighteen. I was fine five
behind Gody at the time, he was number thirteen. He

(17:42):
hadn't been made balls yet. And I always say it
was a silly list. They didn't ask for our tax returns.
I don't know how to It sold a lot of magazines.
But what's not silly about the list, Greg, is that
out of the list of fifty today, forty eight of
them are dead. Number forty nine is doing life in prison,
and I'm the only one live in free.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
How is it that you did serve ten years?

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Right, I got a ten year sentence. I served eight
out of the ten, which is a maximum.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
How is it that you are sitting here living to
tell the story and didn't serve maybe a longer sentence,
or that you were not targeted?

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Well, you know I was targeted for a while because
when I walked away, you can't do that. And a
lot of people thought that. You know, normally when guys
walk away, they become informants and they start testifying against people,
and that's what happens.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
But you never did that.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
No, I didn't want to do that. I wasn't I
wasn't looking to hurt anybody, you know, Greg was. It
was a crazy thing with me that some people don't understand.
It's a treacherous life. There's no question there's backstabbing in
this and that, but it's like anything else, it's a
little more intense the consequences on the streets. So when
I left life, I wasn't mad at anybody. I didn't
want to get even with anybody. I didn't want to

(18:51):
hurt anybody. And I would never put my father in
a position where his son was doing bad things to
others because he was still on a life. But people
didn't understand that. But I kept sending messages back, I'm
not going to hurt anybody, don't worry about it. I
just want out of life. And they said, well, why
do you want out her life? And I told my dad,
I said, Dad, every family of every member of this

(19:12):
life that I know, has been devastated. I said, look
at our family. My mom, you know, thirty three years
without her husband when she passed away. Her relationship with
my dad was ugly.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
That's how much time he spent incarcerat.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
He spent forty years. I had fifty. And I said,
you know, and she blamed you for everything that went
wrong and what went wrong. My sister dies of an
overdose of drugs. My younger brother's a drug addict twenty
five years. I can't tell you how hard I had
to work to keep him alive on the street. If
it wasn't for me, my father, he would have been
taken out. My other younger sister dies at the age

(19:46):
of forty. She was never mentally stable, I said, And
every family is the same way, every family. So I
just met this young girl. I'm in love with her.
I'm going to marry her. Am I going to bring
her into this Number Number one, number two. I've been
indicted seven times, I've been to trial five times. I've
been arrested eighteen times. I said, I got a huge

(20:07):
target on my back. I'm never going to walk away
from this life one way or the other.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
I'm going to go down.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
I have to make a choice. And he kind of
understood it, but he didn't go along with it because
my dad was just too much a part of that life.
He said, you took an oath. I said, I understand that,
but I have a young girl that I'm in love with.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
And at the same time, my wife introduced me to
the Lord.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
And so I've got this whole.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
You know.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
It was very, very difficult to make the decision to
walk away because I felt like I was betraying my people,
my friends, my oath.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
But then't your father and effect betray you.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
He did, because when I walked away, Well, I'll tell
you what really happened. I think this is important for
people to understand because I think my whole life story
is it goes in three phases. Number one, my adoration
for my father. Really wanted to be the best possible
person I could be for him, whatever it might have
been when I got into the life, I wanted to

(21:05):
make him proud. And then it was my heavenly father
at some point, and of course my wife. These were
the three most dynamic people in my life. But one
of the horrors of that life is that you make
a mistake. Your best friend walks you into a room
and you don't walk out again in my twenty years
in that life. Obviously, I know people that went through that.

(21:28):
So when I was on the street, I was making
a lot of money greg and I was a captain
in the family. They had elevated my position, and you know,
I was one of the younger guys. So you know
how it is in life. You're a younger guy, you're
doing well. You got the older guys that there's some
resentment there and you got a why. You gotta know
how to navigate that life. It's very, very difficult at times.
You gotta know how to deal with people. And so

(21:49):
there was a lot of talk on the street about me,
and there was an article that came out in the
Long Island paper that said I was becoming powerful enough
to break away from the Columbos, to stop my own family.
It was like a fictional story. It was no truth.
I never even indicated that, never even a thought order
to get in people's heads. So my dad happened to
be on parole during that forty years. He was on

(22:11):
parole a few times, kept going back total of forty
years silly. So he called me up and he said,
I got to see you. So I go to his
house and he says, the boss wants to see us tonight.
I said, okay, what time you want me to pick
you up? Because I drove him everywhere to try to
protect him. I didn't have a record at that point,
so he wouldn't meet with anybody because he kept getting
violated for associating with other criminals. So he said, they

(22:34):
want to do this differently. They want me to come
in first and they want you to come in second.
I said why, I said, why are they going to
separate us? You know there's talk on the street. We'll
argue about it. I said, I'm not doing that. We're
going together. We're not going to let them separate us.
After about a half hour, I threw up my hands.
I said, Dad, I've been listening to you all my life.
I don't like this, but if this is what you want,

(22:55):
I'll do it. Make a very long story short. I
drive into Brooklyn and I meet another captain in the
family who I knew my whole life, and I get
in the car with him. Because we had to drive
to meet the boss. It had to be a covert
meeting because he was on parole. Everybody's on parole, right
so I couldn't bring the law enforcement there. So we're
driving around. But when I get in a car, I

(23:15):
noticed that somebody sitting in the back seat who wasn't
a maid, guy who I had met maybe once or twice.
And I'm saying, why is he here? And as we're
driving to the house, my good friend doesn't tell me
what the meeting is about. And I don't want to
look like I'm scared, so I don't I ask him.
Right when we parked the car was a summer day
in August, and we had to go to a basement

(23:37):
apartment in a house, single family house, and it was
about a thirty yard walk from the car to the basement,
down the steps, and Greg, I was scared because I
got out of the car and I started walking. I
heard the two car doors slam. Now I said, why
is his kid, this young guy coming into this meeting.

(23:57):
Something's wrong, And I'm saying I might get killed here,
and I didn't want to show fear. People have said
to me, why didn't you cut and run? And I said, well,
it wasn't heroic, it was really robotic.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
I was just so much a.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Product of a life by that time. I said, hey,
if this is it, this is it. So I'm walking
down those steps and when the door opens, I knew
that that could have been a less thing.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
I saw.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
I almost I probably almost fainted, I don't remember. But anyway,
long story short, I'm here right. So that didn't happen.
But we had a real argument over the gas business.
What they wrote in that article was that I was
bringing down two billion dollars a year, which was crazy.
And I was telling the boss. I said, you know,

(24:42):
when they write about everybody else, it's a lie. When
they're writing about me.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
It's true.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
I said, this is all nonsense. Anyway, it goes over. Fine, Okay,
you know we believe you. We're sorry, and let's have
a drink. Because I don't want a drink. I want
to go home. So I told Jimmy drive me back
to my car. And this is where it gets interesting.
So when we get in the car, I was really
upset with him because he's my good friend. He didn't
prepare me, and it was trouble, and I said I
to tell him something. He said, before you say anything,

(25:07):
let me tell you this. I said. What he said, Michael,
this was a real problem for you tonight. You handled
yourself well, it could have been a problem. When he
said that, I got even more upset with him. I said,
you're my good friend, I know you my whole life,
and you don't tell me. So he looked at me.
He was very smart, greg and he said, if it
was the other way around, would you have told me?
And I thought about it for a second. I'm being honest,

(25:30):
I said no. So that's the life we lead. He said,
you know it better than any of you grew up
in it. And then I'm thinking about that. And then
as I go to get out of the car we
parked to go into my car, he grabs my arm
and he says to me, I'm going to tell you something.
You're not going to want to hear this, but it
is the truth. I am your friend. I said what
he said, your father was in here before you tonight.

(25:50):
He didn't help you one bit. He hurt you. And
when he said that to me, it was like, what
can my father have done?

Speaker 1 (25:57):
I was shocked.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
I didn't even answer him, but I said, I'm walking
back to my car. Knowing my father so well and
knowing what his legacy in that life meant, I know
what he did and I verified this later. Hey, I
don't do anything. My son handles everything. I'm on parole.
If there's money missing or if he's got any ideas,
I don't know anything about it. He kind of threw
me under the bus, which is very dangerous. But I'll
tell you what happened. Two things happened that night. This

(26:19):
happened two years before I met Camille. I never said
a word to my father. In that life, you don't
say anything, you just keep quiet. But if that incident
didn't happen, I don't think I would have ever walked
away from the life because I couldn't have hurt my father.
So I believe in my faith now that the Lord
showed me two things. Number One, he had to break

(26:40):
that bond I had with my dad. And number two,
he showed me that I could face death if I
had to. So I knew when I walked away that
I was going to have trouble, but I was prepared
for it. And I totally believe greg after this thirty
years now that I'm a Christian, that I've watched how
God navigates things in people's lives, and I believe that

(27:02):
was the course he said for me, and it was major.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, so let's let's talk about that. Okay, So you're
finally convicted, Rudy Giuliani actually prosecuted you. You're in prison,
and what's that like to walk into prison knowing you're
going to spend you know, you were sentenced to ten years, right,
you got out sooner, but you know you're going to
spend ten years in prison, and in fact, you spent

(27:30):
a lot of that time in solitary confinement and a
place was it called the whole?

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (27:36):
What is the feeling one has when they strip you
of your belongings and give you what tell me what happens?

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Well, it's it's very humbling. I can tell you that.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Now.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
I spent twenty nine months in seven days in solitary.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, in the eight years, maes. That look like solitary.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
It's just six x ten six by eight six x ten.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
So is there a bed in there?

Speaker 2 (27:57):
There's a cot. You know, it's like this slimmer than
this actually with a you.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
Know, this thick toilet.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
You have a toilet and ah that's attached. It's a
stainus steel toilet and sink that's detached. And then you
have a little stainus steel kind of a desk you
know that you have and that's it. You know, independence
are a window sometimes sometimes no.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
And they feed you every day.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
They feed you three meals a day.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
Like what does a meal look like?

Speaker 2 (28:24):
Well, I got I got food poisoning there several times,
usually from chicken, so I stopped eating. I just would
eat bananas and cereal and cup of soup because I
knew that that was sealed, you know, so i'd cup
of soup and the rice that was sealed. I wouldn't
need anything. So I lost a lot of weight there,
but you know, and they push it through the slot

(28:46):
on the door and you take it and then you
put your tray out when you finish, and that's it.
There's no television federal prisons. I don't give you a
television or anything like that. You got reading material and
that's your day.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
So you're in this prison cell, isolated and you what
you start thinking, You start praying, how did you make
the connection from where you were at at that point
to seeing your need for a relationship with God.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Well, what happened to me is, you know, on ten years,
if you don't get in trouble, they give you good time.
So when you I did eight years, I didn't get
in any trouble. That was a maximum good time that
they were able to give me. So I maxed out.
I did all the time, but I had got out
on parole after five years. I was on parole for
thirteen months, and during that time, the government was trying

(29:36):
to get.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Me to cooperate and I also mean rat out people.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yes, they wanted me. There was cases they presented to
me that they knew I knew about, and I wouldn't
do it. I had other people. I wouldn't you do it.
I just that's not who I am.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
If you would have done it, would you have not
have to serve any time? And that would have been
the end of it.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
Yes, when I first took my plea, they offered me to,
you know, cooperate, and I said no, So I got
to tenure.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
If you cooperated the you think you would have been
whacked killed.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Well, they would have put me in the witness protection program.
They would have changed my identity. I can't live like that,
you know. And it wasn't for me. So I said,
just give me my sentence. That was it, and I
had a big fine in restitution too, and I had
forfeiture close. They took a lot out of me, they
really did. So I went in. I got the ten
years since I got out on a parole after five years.

(30:30):
I was a model prisoner. I didn't have any trouble.
But during that time it became very public that I
was walking away, and that's when I had all the trouble,
and they started locking me down for my own protection
and moving me different prisons. They put me on what
they called diesel therapy, where they pick you up at
two in the morning out of your cell. They put
you on a plane that the marshals confiscated for somebody,

(30:51):
and they just moved you to another prison.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
They fly you to another place. Yeah, you don't even
did you know where you were going?

Speaker 2 (30:56):
I had no idea.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
But when you got there, you knew what prison. I
knew what I was, Yeah, but you had no way
to communicate that.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
No, no, And then they put you in solitary for
two three months, two weeks, you don't know when. Then
they pick you up again, take you souse. So my wife,
she didn't even know where I am. They don't let
anybody know for security reasons, they say, so she would
try to call the Bureau of Prisons in Washington find
out where I am. So they put me on that
for about eight months. They just kept running me around

(31:23):
and they were trying to weaken me so I would cooperate.
I get out on parole, and during that thirteen months parole,
it was a very very bad time. I mean, people
will I mean I came home one day and the
FBI was in my house and they told Cammy that
if I didn't leave by the weekend, I was going
to be dead because they had sent some guys out
to kill me. And the FBI, whether they like you

(31:45):
or not, they're obligated to tell you if your life
is in danger.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
So she was nervous.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
I said, don't believe these guys, but she was. So
we picked up and we went to Palm Springs for
a couple of days, and then they told me, you know,
the threat is over, come on back. I don't even
know if it was real or not, that they were
just playing a game with me to get me more scared.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah, but I had to satisfy her, so we left.
And then after thirteen months they violated my parole and
I was walking out of a bank in Brentwood, and
they picked me up. They leaned all my bank accounts,
took every penny I had, They took my car, drove
it away. They went to the house with a search warrant,
they cleaned, They went into cammage perse and took all

(32:25):
her money out of the perch. We had zero money. Wow,
And we had two babies at that point. And she
had a breakdown on me that she couldn't visit me
for seven or eight weeks because she thought they told
her I would never see the street again. It was done,
and they would driving me down to the federal lockup
in La the jail, going to transport me to.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Did they do this well, Oh, they were just still
trying to get information out of it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
It was a nonsense violation. It was nothing to it.
But that night when they put me in a hole,
they told me, we're indicting you on another major racketeering case.
We violated your parole, we took every penny you have.
You'll never see the street again. So they throw me
in a hole. And I have to say, I'm a
pretty resourceful guy. I always figure I can get something done.

(33:12):
You know, you're not going to stop me. But that
night I was out of answers. I said, they took
all my money. I said, I can't fight another case,
rico case. You can't beat it with a public defender.
I spent millions of defending myself. I said, they're not
going to put me out on the yard. I'm going
to spend the rest of my life in this whole,

(33:32):
and I'm going to lose the girl I did all
of this for. She's not going to wait for me.
She's twenty seven years old. She waited five years, thirteen
months on the street. So I was done. And I'll
tell you how serious it was for me. There was
a point that night when I used to demean people
that were suicidal. I said they were weak and I
don't face up to their troubles. I don't do that anymore.

(33:54):
I wasn't suicidal, but I was so broken. I really
want to lay my head on that count and not
wake up. Because there was two paint. I visited my
father over twenty years. I did all that time. I said,
I'm going to put my family through that. I'd rather
just take me. I really wanted to just close my eyes.
And you know, did you ever get to a point
where it's too painful to think, you don't even want

(34:15):
to think. And I'm laying there and I'm just done.
And then a prison gud walked by myself and he said,
you don't look good. He opened a flap on the
door and I said, get away from me. I don't
want to see you. I chased him. I said, close
the latch and leave me alone. And he came back
about maybe two minutes later, and he pushes a Bible
through the slot on the door. And my immediate reaction

(34:39):
because Camille and her mother were talking to me about
the Lord, and I was, you know, I respected them
because they were diligent in their faith. I saw it
was real, so I respected it, but I wasn't really
buying into it. I said, okay, you know I respect you.
And I was just really angry with God. I said,
I married a Christian girl, I walked away from that life,

(35:00):
and you're supposed to be a great, wonderful God. Look
what you're doing to me. And I kind of, I said,
came out out of me. So I jumped off the
con and picked up the Bible and just slammed it
against the wall. I was really angry. And then I
picked it up and I said, you know what, I
got nothing but enemies. Everybody hates me tonight, and there's
only me and God in this cell. Because I believe,
I mean, it makes sense to believe in God. I

(35:21):
believed in God. And I just picked up the book
and I said, you know what, I need some help, man.
And I looked up at the ceiling and I said,
give me something to make me feel better. I grew
up a Catholic, and I don't ever remember reading the Bible.
As a Catholic. I remember the Catechism, the priest read
the Bible from the pulpit, the Gospel, and I was
an altar boy, but I don't remember reading the Bible.

(35:41):
Maybe I did, I don't remember. So I just didn't
know where to begin, and I just held it open
and it opened up to the Book of Proverbs, and
I started reading it, and I was just attracted by
the brilliance of Solomon. I said, Wow, some of the
quotes that he said in there were exactly what my
father taught me. Learn how to keep your mouth shut,

(36:02):
you know, don't speak when you have nothing to say,
you know, things like that. So I said, wow, my
father was a pretty smart guy. I wonder if he
ever read the book. And then I came to a
verse Greg that just stopped me cold. And I don't
know why, you know, and I've told people this, I
don't have any special connection with guy. He doesn't speak
to me audibly. I've never seen him in a dream,
But now he speaks to my heart. But that night

(36:25):
something just got me. Proverbs chapter sixteen, verse seven. You
know when a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord,
even his enemies or at peace with him. And so
it was the enemy's part that got me. And then
for some reason, I think it was like the Holy
Spirit said, who are you kidding? You're a mobster. You
married a Christian girl. That doesn't make you a Christian.

(36:47):
All these things went through my head. And then the
last thing I remember being thinking was, but if you
did turn to me, I can take care of your enemies.
And it really meant something. And I started to read
on and then another verse came to me, which became
the verse of my life. You know, really, it's Proverbs three,
verses five and six. Trust in the Lord with all

(37:08):
your heart, lean out on your own understanding, in all
your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.
But that night I said, Okay, God, this all sounds good,
but you know what, I trusted my father. I took
a blood oat. That was a good mob guy. Look
where I got me. Show me. And because I had

(37:29):
nothing but time on my hands twenty nine months, to
be exact, I dove into the Bible. My prison Bible
has more of my notes than scripture. I write on everything,
and I had my wife's sending me in books on
every faith because that's all I had to do. And
I wanted to. I said, you know what I mean,
dying here, if there really is a heaven and a hell,
I want to know if I'm going one place or

(37:49):
the other. So and you know what else I did.
I developed a very healthy fear of hell living in
solitary confinement. And I've always said it's good to have
a healthy fear of things that are bad for you.
And it just motivated me to really search for the truth.
And great guy came out of a solid believer in
the Bible and Jesus as my savior. And I've told

(38:10):
people this, I'm not the best Christian by any means,
but my faith is rock solid. Nobody can ever tell
me anything differently because of what I've researched, what I've
seen in my life, and what I've seen God has
done in other people's lives. Rock solid. So my belief
is never in jeopardy no matter what happens. And I
say this, and I know you can relate to this,

(38:32):
even if I would lose one of my children. At
this point in time, I understand we live in a
fallen world. I understand God never promised us heaven on earth.
He promised us heaven and heaven. I understand the Bible
is very clear we're going to go through heartaches and hardships.
Is very honest in that regard. My faith would never
I don't think my faith could ever be rocked, and

(38:55):
hopefully I'm a better Christian as a result of that.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
When I first met you, it was years ago. My goodness,
was it twenty five years ago.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
I came out in ninety six, and that's when I
came to see right.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
So someone said to me, there's this guy named Michael Frenzies.
He was in the mafia and he wants to meet you.
He said, he used to listen to you in prison.
First of all, I thought, no guy in the mafia
could be out. I mean, he would you know, they
probably would have killed him, because I'd seen movies about
the Maffia and I was an expert. I'm kidding. It's like,
don't they whack them or something like that. And I said,

(39:28):
did he use the phrase sleeps with the fishes at
any point? Or whack it? So when I met you,
I was I was suspicious. I thought, what is this guy?
And you know, I don't believe this because you know,
sometimes people have what we call a testimony and they exaggerate,
they exaggerate what they used to do. And I thought,
there's no way. And then I did a little research
on you and it was all true and and you

(39:50):
were really that guy. But somehow you were listening to
me when you were in the hole.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
I had a sony walk man, yes, and I stumbled
across you and listening to your morning show that you had,
and I'm reading the Bible and I'm listening to you,
and you have I have to say this, you have
a very soothing, honest voice, you know, And when I
had trouble with interpretation on some of the scripture, miraculously

(40:17):
you would I you would clear it up?

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Oh wow?

Speaker 2 (40:20):
And I was listening to you every single morning, every
single morning. So then I find out you. I knew
you were in Riverside. From that, I said, I got
to go meet Greg and thank him, and that was
my sole reason for going to see that's great.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
I remember that too. So but you told me there
was something. There's a scene in the Godfather. When was
his name? Who was the guy who was the singer
Tony Fantine or something? Yeah, yeah, he goes to Vito
Corleone at Vito's daughter's wedding and he can't get a

(40:53):
part in the film and he starts to cry, and Vito,
like I think, he slaps him and says, be a man, right.
So it's a big thing to be a man, right?
Is that true in the mob life for maybe an
Italian culture as well in general, it's just be a man,
be masculine, right. So, but you told me there was
something about reading about Jesus and his suffering us that

(41:15):
you realized this is the ultimate man. I mean, even
just Pilot said of Jesus, behold the man. What was
it about that aspect? The masculinity of Christ in laying
his life down for us. That kind of appealed to you.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Well, here's what happened. You know, from the time I
was a kid, all I ever heard my father say
is the standard you have to live up to in
life is be a man's man. Not only a man,
but a manage man. You know, it's one thing to
be a man, but to have other men really respect you.
You know, you got to have integrity, treat women and
children the right way. He stressed it. Well, that's all true,
isn't Yeah. Yeah, And then when I got into the life,

(41:53):
the same thing. We're men of honor, we're men's men.
We're above all the other men.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
You know.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
The one thing about that life, and this is kind
of the meaning. But to a made guy, anybody that's
not a made guy is a sucker. You could be
the president of unitedtiated, you're going to be the pope.
You're not a made guy. You didn't take that oath.
You're a sucker. We're men about it. We're men above
all men. That's what the life teaches you. So growing

(42:19):
up as a Catholic, and this is nobody's fault, I
always had this wimpy view of Jesus. He's hanging on
a cross, and nobody ever talked about his manhood that
I recall. So when I finally that night it actually started,
I said, you know what, Jesus, I want to see
what kind of guy he was. So I kind of

(42:39):
separated his deity when I started reading the Gospels, and
I just looked at Jesus of Nazareth and his manhood,
and that's what sold me around. And you know, it
was even intensified when I went to Jerusalem and I
walked to Via della Rosa, and I always got the
chills when I saw the three times that he fell.
I said, how did he get up carrying that across?

(43:01):
So his strength and then of course his wisdom, and
we can go through the whole character the rest of Jesus.
So that sold me on his manhood. So you know,
I even said to myself, I said, you know what,
if you emulate Jesus, try to be like him as
a man throughout your life, you're going to be a
better person. Everybody's going to benefit from you. And then
I said, well, if I'm mistaken and he's not the

(43:22):
savior of the world and I'm dead, I'm dead anyway.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
But what did I have to lose.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
Emulating Jesus is a win win situation. That's a powerful
message to men, right I said, you have nothing to lose.
He's the greatest man that ever walked the face of
the earth, the only perfect man, perfect in every way.
That's who should be the person you want to emulate.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
It seems like we have a real problem in the culture,
especially young men today, that that they're just you know,
they call it toxic masculinity, which is ridiculous, and men
are so diminished and denigrated, and it seems like a

(44:02):
generation of young men are looking for you know, I
did an interview and you've done interview what you did
a podcast with them as well. Jordan Peterson, he's been
a powerful voice to young people and to young men
in particular, because maybe he tells them things their dad
didn't tell him. Maybe they didn't have a dad growing up.
I don't know, but like clean your room, that's kind

(44:23):
of a thing that you know, just start there, start
with simple things in life. But I think that young
men today are looking for masculine role models. You know,
maybe it's because of a lack of fathers and our culture,
which is an epidemic one experts said, where we are
in danger of becoming a fatherless society. And you can
almost take every societal ill in America today and trace

(44:45):
it to the breakdown of the family, specifically to the
absence of fathers. Yes, so what do you think, what
would you say to someone that's looking to this to
the idea of being a mascular role model if they
don't have a dad, where would they find such a person?

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Well, that's up to all of us. You know, Greg,
I spent time in prison with all a lot of
young people coming into the system twenty twenty one years old.
You can write the same script for every one of them.
Broken home, no father, follow every single one of them.
They gravitate to the street, they get to the local
drug dealer, gangbanger, end up in prison. They have no guidance.
And I believe we as a society, I say, we

(45:24):
created the environment that they're living with, and we owe
something back to these young people. Unfortunately, there's a section
of society that wants the dumb down manhood. And I
tell these young people, and I tell even women, now,
if a man is acting like a man, it's not
demeaning to women. It's a benefit to women. They do
what they're supposed to be doing as a man. They provide,

(45:45):
they protect, they nourish, you know, they take care of
And I think that's the message that we have to
give young men and it resonates, but we have to
do it because where do they go? And I totally
agree it's the breakup of the family that's all these issues.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
That were And just to not forget the ladies. I mean,
really many ways, the hero of your story is Camille Cammy.
I mean, she stood by you through thick and things.
And I can say, you know, because you had your
challenges growing up and you talked about the problems in
your family. But I look at your family today. You know,
you're the head of your family, and I look at

(46:22):
the wonderful family and how you've loved them and nurtured
them and all the things you're saying a man should do.
You've done that and a beautiful family. And your wife
tell us a little bit about what gave her the
strength to stand with you through years of all of
these legal challenges and your incarceration.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
Well, you know, I mean, first of all, she will
tell you I love my husband. But if God wasn't
in the foundation of a marriage. I wouldn't have made
it through. So it was her faith that gave her
this one hundred percent of her faith. And I was
very fortunate and that her mother and her grandmother were
strong women.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
Wife.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
You know, greg I one time, this was early on
when they finally started to know who I was. Yeah,
I told her mother, I said, listen, I'm going to
bring some baggage into your daughter's life. Not intentionally, it's
just from my past, I said, But I promise you
I'll never hurt her. I love her. She became my
strongest ally, and when I went back into jail the

(47:20):
second time, she was the one that kept Cammi strong
because it was very difficult, very difficult. But I'm going
to be honest with you. My wife and I have
partners in every way. She does her job wonderfully. I
do my job, and I put her on a pedestal
because she deserves that. And whatever she wants from me
she got. And obviously she doesn't ask anything that you

(47:43):
know would I shouldn't give her. But as far as
I'm concerned, she's a better person than I am, and
she's she's more perceptive than I am. I have to
tell you. You know, she'll know when somebody you should
because you know, I'm an entrepreneur kind of guy, and
I get involved with people, and she knows somebody right
away says, I don't want you dealing with that guy.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Really.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
Yeah, And she's she's right ninety nine percent of the time,
you know. So, I mean she's if it wasn't for her,
I'd be dead to in prison for.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
The rest of my life. Wow, that's a statement right there.
So you travel around the world telling your story and
there's young men today that you already alluded to that
are drawn to a life of crime. It's kind of
glamorized and certainly these mob films, you know, can have
a certain appeal, but those are movies that's not real
the real life you've lived it. What would you say

(48:30):
to a young man who's drawn to a criminal lifestyle
it might be a gang or some other way they
would express that, Like, what would your word be to them?
Because you've literally been there and done that.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Yes, you know, I drive two major points home to
a lot of the young people out with all the time,
and it's two things I show them. Remember this in
this world you are, in this life, who you hang
out with. If you hang with the wrong crowd, you're
going to be known to be the wrong type of person,
even if you think you're a good person, and they
are going to influence you, and they've got to bring
you in the wrong direction. Who you hang out, who

(49:05):
you around yourself very important. Secondly, I tell them, who
you are accountable to in life is going to direct
the path that your life goes down. I said, when
I was on the street, I was accountable to my boss,
to my oath. I was a criminal. Now I'm accountable
to my God first, to my wife, my children. People
that rely on me don't want me to know disappoint them.
So my pats are a lot straighter. I said, So

(49:28):
the criminal life is the wrong people to be around.
You're going to go to jail, You're going to get hurt,
you're going to get something's going to go down, and
who you were accountable to? And I told them accountability
is very important. Even if you're a boss, you have
to be accountable to somebody or something. And the message
really resonates And I told them, listen, I was part
of the biggest gang in the world, and I walked

(49:50):
away for a reason. And I've been successful in doing that,
and that's when I give them the faith message. Yes,
and it really resonates Greg. You know when you God
has blessed me because I've been there and done that,
and you have credibility, and credibility is everything. You talk
to the shoon. In other words, I'll turn you right off.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Yeah. So it's like the old adage show me your friends,
I'll show you your future. And someone you know, blessed
is the man that walks none on the council of
being godly, or stands in the way of sinners, or
sits in the seat of the scornful. Word blessed can
be translated happy. Hey, you want to be a happy person,
don't hang around ungodly people, people who mock God. But

(50:29):
then it says, in contest, but his delight is in
the word of the Lord, and in it does he
meditate day and night. And then it says, and he'll
be like a tree planted by the rivers of water
that will bring forth fruit in his season. His leaves
shall not whether whatever he does shall prosper. You know,
so God will bless you like you're talking about proverbs.

(50:49):
Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, don't
lean to your own understanding and all your ways. Acknowledge him.
He'll direct your pats. God's plan is better than our
plan for ourself, so you know. And I'll say something
about your dad too, even though you would rough relationship
and your father, well, I'll just say it wasn't the
perfect role model. He was a very flawed man, but

(51:12):
you you loved him, and he lived a very long life.
In fact, at one point, wasn't he the longest serving
prisoner in the system.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
He was released in twenty seventeen at the age one
hundred one hundred. He was the oldest inmate in the
federal system.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
And I know, I mean because you tell me about
him often and you would go and visit him in prison.
What was Sonny's reaction to you being not only a
Christian but in fact a guy who's taking your story
and using it to bring others to faith. Did he
like that? Did he not like that?

Speaker 2 (51:48):
I'm going to sum it up quick. You know, one
of the guilts that I carry with me, and it
bothers me, is I don't think I ministered enough to
my diet.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
It was very hard, you know, It's always hard though
with your parents. But hard. You had a very unusual
situation too, that's it was hard. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
But I had once open at a place I think
was in Pennsylvania and it was a big, big gathering
and the chaplain was a woman there and she said,
I'm so moved by the story of you and your father.
I want to go visit your dad. And I said, great,
if you can get in, do it. So she was
very aggressive. She gets in, she spends three hours with
my dad. She told me two things. She said, you know,

(52:27):
when I walked in, because my father wasn't expecting her.
When I walked in, she said, I'm the chaplain and
he goes, oh, really, my son is a pastor and
now I'm not a pastor. But and I said, well,
how did he say that? He said he was very
proud of that, so that like, wow, I never realized
that because he didn't really indicate that to me. And

(52:48):
then she told me, she said, your dad and I
read the Bible for three hours and he accepted Christ.
Now I didn't see much evidence of that afterwards, but
whom I to doubt that, you know? So I felt
really good about that, and I had so many people
praying for him, and I believe in the power prayer.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
I would disagree with you. I think you were an
excellent son, and I know how many times you want
to visit him, and I know it was hard for you,
but yet you sowed that seed and prepared the ground,
and that lady, you know, shared the gospel. And if
Sunny Frenzies died believing in Jesus Christ Is as Savior
and Lord, regardless of the sin that he committed, he

(53:27):
was forgiven, just like the thief on the cross who
and you know the thief was probably was a murderer
because they didn't crucify thieves, so he probably was an
insurrection there's guilty of serious crimes for sure. And Jesus
said today you'll be with me in Paradise. I think
you're a great son to your father, and you know
you had a very rough life, but I love the

(53:49):
way that you were able to go back and you know,
bring grace and forgiveness to your dad. And I know
you know with your family as well, you care about
them a great deal. I'm talking about your siblings and
such and the challenges you've had there. So you know,
I think of one of the most remarkable stories I've
ever heard. And to me, it's almost like the story

(54:11):
of the apostle Paul. I mean, Paul was a murderer. Paul.
You weren't a murderer, but Paul was. And Paul was
living a godless life, thinking he was living a godly
life and the last thing he planned undoing was becoming
a believer. But God reached out and touched him. And
it's interesting he didn't do it through a person. He

(54:32):
did it supernaturally. Most of us come to faith when
someone shares the gospel with us. And in a way,
a prison guard opened the door for you, but ultimately
you got a personal encounter with Christ and a prison cell.
The Lord just said you're going to be my son now.
And you could have said no, but of course you
said yes. And it's just an amazing story. And I

(54:55):
think your story says to anybody listening to us right now,
no one is beyond the reach of God. I mean,
if God can reach Michael Frenzies, if God can reach
Sunny Frenzies, who can God nutreach? And so maybe what
would you say to someone who has a son or

(55:15):
a dad or someone they know that is turned their
back and God has no interest in the spiritual things.
What would you say to encourage them to not give up?

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Well, you know, just two recent encounters I had. I've
spoken a men's group Friday night, and a fella that
I was in prison with who Yeah, who was a
wild guy in prison to say the least. He heard
He lives in the same area with the church that
I was going to when he heard about and he said,
could I come and see you? I said sure, He said,

(55:48):
can I bring my wife? He said, because we realized,
said well, it's a men's event, but if you're not uncomfortable, yeah,
I'll work it out. So he came with two of
his friends and their wives also, and that night they
all accept the christ Man. Yeah. And this was I
hadn't seen him in years because we were in prison together,
and so why.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Ever give up?

Speaker 2 (56:10):
And he was a wild guy. And then this is
even more fascinating to me, my younger brother who had
that drug problem. He ended up cooperating with law enforcement.
He became an informant and he actually testified against my
dad in a case that sent my dad back to prison.
I hadn't spoken to him for ten years. I was

(56:31):
angry with him. And then my seventieth birthday was a
surprise party and Cammi invited him, And that was three
years ago, and now we've been very close. He explains.
You know, Greg, my three brothers and sisters, you all
handle things in life differently. They weren't able to handle

(56:53):
the turbulence through our childhood for some reason. You know,
I was able to. But when he explained to me
some of the reasons why he did what he did,
it started making sense to me. You know, I said,
you know, who am I to be inside his head
and understand what he can handle. He couldn't handle certain things,
and now he's come to the Lord, you know, as

(57:14):
a result in the past three years.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Another guy. Some people that listened to you may know
who he is. Sammy de bou Gravano. Oh yeah, yeah,
I was in church with Gotti, right, yeah. He was
the one that testified against God. He admitted to nineteen murders.
This you have a partner, this too. We were in church,
Camy and I one day, and you said, is there
anybody out there that you should be praying for?

Speaker 1 (57:37):
Just pray for him?

Speaker 2 (57:38):
So Cammy turned to me and said, let's pray for Sammy.
So I prayed for Sammy and I mentioned that to him.
He got upset with me. Yeah, what are you praying
for me for? What are you right? Okay, I said, Sammy,
calm down, it's a good thing. Right. Well, six months
ago he got baptized and accepted the Lord.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
I did not know that.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Yes, yeah, right out here he did.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
Now he's walking with That is amazing because I know
you guys have done interviews before and kind of had
a little bitboarded heads. Yeah. Yeah, because you're two of
the very few living, surviving guys from that life that
are out there talking about it. Yes, wow, that's great news.
And Sammy, Yeah, he accepted a law and he was

(58:18):
he not an enforcer what we might call it yet. Man.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
Yes, he admitted to nineteen murders, Oh my goodness, nineteen
and you know he cooperated, he went into the program
and all of that. But you know, when people I
have to say this too, Regan, maybe you'll understand. People
have knocked me for being friendly with him now because
he gets a lot of bad stuff set about him

(58:42):
on social media. And I tell people, listen, I was
one of those guys. I don't judge a person's heart. Yeah,
I have tried my best to lead him to the Lord.
I'm not saying I'm the sole person that had done that,
but he saw by example who I am. But I
don't back off of people because of what other people say,
because with God, anything is possible. Anything.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
How can we person if we don't have dialogue with them.
I mean, Jesus sat down with the woman at the well,
with the woman caught in the act of adultery. He
engaged with Pontus Pilot, the Roman governor. You know, we
want to reach them and we have to have communication
with them. As Paul said, I become all things to
all men. That doesn't mean you compromise your beliefs, but

(59:25):
it means you have to talk with them and you know,
try to reach them. And I think you do that
well wherever you go. Well, Michael, thank you for all
that you do. God bless you and your family, your
wonderful family, and the way you travel around as a
representative of Christ and reach people that I could never reach,

(59:47):
that many of us wouldn't reach. But you've taken your mess,
You've turned it into a message. Your test has become
a testimony and God is using you, and I know
he will continue to do some Thanks are taking some time,
and so we could have a sit down together. Yes,
sit down, but that's kind of a phrase in the mob.

(01:00:09):
What would that mean. We're gonna have a sit down.
That's not a good thing generally.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Is No, we're deciding something. It could be very important,
you know. But I do want to say this, you know,
I appreciate so much, you know, what Harvest has done
for me and my family. Now obviously we go back,
we go back a long time from a prison cell
and just to support my whole family has gotten through
some you know, turbulent times that we've had, and I

(01:00:34):
always hold Harvest up as an example of what a
church should be. Oh, thank you for that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
Appreciate it. Thanks for coming on, Thank you, thank you. Hey,
Thanks for watching. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, follow me
on social media. Make sure you download the Harvest Plus
app because there you will find so much information that
we have for you that you'll love. So thanks for watching.

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ENCORE | An Interview with Michael Franzese on Redemption, Faith, and Family

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}ENCORE | An Interview with Michael Franzese on Redemption, Faith, and Family