YNOT – After a trial that read more like chapters in a Mario Puzo novel than pages from real life, the underboss of a New York crime family stands convicted of racketeering for ordering the shakedown of Penthouse and Hustler strip clubs and a pizzeria in Manhattan.During the three-week-long trial of Colombo underboss John “Sonny” Franzese, the jury heard recordings in which the 93-year-old capo extolled the virtues of business extortion, boasted about his role in several gangland murders and waxed eloquent about the art of body disposal. In one recording, he called himself the “official” underboss of the Colombo family.
Dubbed “The Nodfather” because he fell asleep during testimony, Franzese spent more than 50 years at the top of New York’s organized crime scene. At the end, he was done in by his son, John Franzese Jr., who became a paid informant for the FBI and wore a wire to record hundreds of hours of conversations with his father. The younger Franzese — a Colombo associate since childhood, when he was tapped to deliver messages between his father and other mob chieftains — indicated he felt betrayed and abandoned by the family after he became addicted to crack cocaine.
“It’s hard to understand how a jury, all of whom have families, would tolerate a son setting up his father, essentially sending him to death behind bars,” Michael Franzese, the gangster’s stepson and a former capo who left the mob years ago, told the New York Daily News. “To see him go down like this and have to die in prison is devastating for him and for those who love him.”
At the height of his career, Franzese lived a movie mobster’s life. He reportedly was fast friends with members of the Rat Pack, spent many free hours at the Copacobana club, and invested in legitimate efforts including the iconic porn movie Deep Throat and the classic horror flick Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Franzese’s bail was revoked pending sentencing, but his ex-wife said she does not fear the mere act of incarcerating the man will end his lengthy career.
“I’d be shocked if he doesn’t live to 100,” Cristina Capoblanco-Franzese, who in one of the trial’s more bizarre sideshows, hijacked her ex-husband’s wheelchair on the way to the men’s room and urged him to plead guilty, told the newspaper. “That man can do jail time standing on his head. He’s true to his position. He lived it. He breathed it. He’ll die it.”
Franzese faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Apparently less concerned about the conviction than the rest of his family, he told reporters outside the courtroom, “Who cares? I gotta die someplace.”
