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Documentary, The Mafia With Trevor McDonald S01E02
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00:00In New York City today, they are still trying to figure out who wanted Joe Colombo dead.
00:10Carmine Galente was rubbed out today as he sat in a Brooklyn luncheonette.
00:13Three other men in trench coats and fedora hats surrounded the car and in close range.
00:21You compared killing someone to swatting a fly.
00:27It's simple, because if I didn't, I couldn't kill him.
00:31For three months, I traveled across America to try to understand what life is like in the Mafia.
00:38The men I met were major figures, some of whom have never spoken before.
00:45So you put a gun to the back of his head and shot him.
00:51Yeah, it was my hit, and I was going to do the work.
00:54I don't like to use the word pride, but at the time, that's what I was thinking.
00:58I'm going to take pride in what I do.
01:00Do they come after you?
01:01No.
01:02Nobody has.
01:04Maybe after they hear this, they might.
01:06It's a life they may leave, but can never entirely escape.
01:10Nor can their families avoid the consequences.
01:13The first rule of the Mafia is loyalty.
01:18Break it, and you pay the price.
01:22Nothing could justify killing somebody in that way as your brother was killed.
01:29Trevor, this is the life.
01:31This is the life we chose.
01:33This is the life he chose, the path.
01:35Your life is not your own.
01:40You're property of this entity, this cause in Austria that goes back hundreds of years.
01:45I'm about to meet someone typical of those who enforce the Mafia's will on the streets.
02:04His name is John Elite.
02:07He's also known as the Sheriff, and he's an accomplished killer.
02:10John Elite, of 42 years old, was in Rio de Janeiro since December...
02:19This was the day Justice caught up with him in Brazil.
02:22He'd been on the run for almost two years, hiding out in 20 countries.
02:31Elite made millions for himself and for the mob.
02:35The FBI offered him a deal.
02:37His testimony against senior Mafia figures in exchange for a shorter prison sentence.
02:46He went down for 10 years.
02:49Recently released, he now lives just outside New York, in his son's apartment.
02:55Matt, nice to meet you.
02:56Nice to meet you.
02:56Hello.
02:57That's my buddy Steve.
02:59Who are you?
02:59Steve.
03:00Steve, hi.
03:00How you doing?
03:01Friend of the family?
03:02Yep.
03:03That's my son Johnny.
03:05Hi Johnny.
03:06Nice to meet you.
03:07You own this.
03:09This is your house.
03:11We share it.
03:12We share it.
03:13He's the boss.
03:14He's the boss.
03:15Yeah.
03:16How does it feel to be living with your son?
03:19Oh, I love it.
03:20They're like my friend's house.
03:21We play all day, go work out together.
03:25So it's good.
03:27It must be nice to have a relationship where you live with your son, you get on together.
03:33Yeah, yeah.
03:34It really is.
03:36After a lot of years, when I look back, they were babies.
03:40I missed a lot of growing up, so we're catching up now.
03:43So it's nice.
03:43John, what's it like living with your dad?
03:46In the beginning, it was difficult, because growing up, I never grew up with the man in
03:52the house.
03:53So when he first came home, it was a little bit of a butt of heads, and it took me some
03:57adjusting and then him some adjusting to be able to live, because he wanted to be the
04:01authoritative figure, and then I never had anybody really telling me what to do.
04:05How much did you know about your father's life?
04:10I kind of knew, kind of.
04:12You know, you have that feeling.
04:13You have that feeling where you kind of just know.
04:15You can tell your dad is just that guy, you know?
04:18But, like, being a young kid, you don't realize to the extent of it.
04:22So then when you find out to the extent of it, it's kind of like, throws you back, and
04:26you're like, whoa.
04:27He did know, but he probably forgets.
04:30You know, I'd come to the house with four or five guys, grab pistols, we'd go take a
04:34ride.
04:35He was a kid at the time, maybe seven years old, and he's crying, and he's saying, Daddy,
04:38can I come with you?
04:40I says, come on, we're taking a quick ride.
04:42Instead of coming with us, he ran in the house, and he went and grabbed his water pistol.
04:46So obviously, he did know.
04:48Subconsciously, he knew what we were up to.
04:49So...
04:50Are you saying there were times when, on your way to execute an order, given by the family,
04:57by the mob...
05:00Your son came with you?
05:01He was there on an occasion or two, yeah, by accident.
05:04We took a ride.
05:05I ran into somebody I was supposed to hurt.
05:08I left him in the car.
05:09I went out, and I shot a guy, and I walked back in the car.
05:11He heard the gunshots.
05:12He goes, what is that, Daddy?
05:14I said, oh, firecrackers, don't worry about it.
05:16And we got in the car, and ambulances and police cars came, and I used to joke with him.
05:20You went on your first hit at seven years old.
05:22John, do you remember anything of that water pistol story?
05:25No, I don't.
05:26But what I do remember is the guys that were around, the money that was around, the cars
05:32that were around.
05:33Kind of, that's why I think subconsciously that I do, I did know, and I do think I remember.
05:38Did you hear the shout?
05:39Did you hear the shout?
05:40I don't remember.
05:41I don't remember.
05:42I really don't.
05:43Do you ever get accustomed to the life of hurting people?
05:49I would be lying to you if I told you I'm an alcoholic with violence, not with alcohol.
05:55So the first thing I think about...
05:56You're addicted to violence?
05:58Yeah.
05:59Or you were?
05:59I was.
06:00Now I handle it.
06:02I change myself, and I've proven over the years I've changed myself.
06:06And every day is a struggle.
06:07I'll lie to you if I say it.
06:08If you said something wrong to me on the street and I didn't know you, my first thought in my mind,
06:13is hurt that guy.
06:14And when you talk about hurting people, what are we talking about here?
06:17Whatever it takes.
06:18Whether I have to kill that person to put him down, whether I just baseball bat him,
06:22whether I punch him in the jaw, the mouth, the nose, but hurt him.
06:26Make sure that he's not going to hurt me or my family.
06:33Unlike other members of the Mafia who have cooperated with the government,
06:37John Elite has not entered the safe haven of the Witness Protection Program.
06:43Instead, he chooses to live out in the open,
06:48accepting that one day someone could make him pay for his betrayal.
06:52He now works in the construction business and spends time with sons who still live in the shadow
07:17of their father's past.
07:18If somebody like you chose the wrong path and got into illegality,
07:32somebody could easily say, well, no surprise there.
07:35No surprise, what do you expect?
07:37But then also, though, if you want to be realistic about it,
07:40you say somebody, to the extent of everything that he's done,
07:44why would I try and follow in somebody else's footsteps?
07:46I get lost in his shadow.
07:48I'll never overcome anything he's ever done or any of his accomplishments
07:51or any kind of crime he's committed or anything like that.
07:55Any of the many crimes.
07:56Any of the many crimes, exactly.
07:57So what's the point of doing it if I'm just going to get lost in it
08:00and I know if he got in trouble,
08:02and he was, for the most part, for a little while, the best at what he did.
08:05So if he was, what makes me think I could do it?
08:08And what's the point at that?
08:09You said an amazing thing there.
08:11He was the best.
08:12He was the best at what he did.
08:14There's an element of admiration for...
08:18A little bit, yeah, 100%.
08:19Did I admire him growing up and see what he did and watch those movies
08:22and you say, wow, like, I would love to do that.
08:25Yeah.
08:25But then when you do mature and you do get older
08:27and then you think about consequences that come with it.
08:35Elite is reconciled to the fact that his deal with the FBI
08:38makes him a marked man.
08:42He can do nothing to change that now.
08:45Not bad.
08:47Still get a couple.
08:49Do you ever feel totally safe
08:53that nobody's after you, nobody's coming to get you?
08:57Is that ever possible for you?
08:59I always think that somebody's...
09:01Everybody's possibly, you know, could go after you.
09:04You know, that's part of my life since I'm a little kid.
09:07Since I'm probably in the street since I'm about 16, 17, I live that way.
09:11So nothing's changed as far as that.
09:13I mean, my issue isn't if three guys were over there with a gun.
09:15Most guys that know me,
09:17if there's three guys there with a gun and a knife,
09:18I got, you know, I'll go deal with that.
09:21You're not worried if somebody comes after you with a knife and a gun.
09:25You feel you can deal with that.
09:28It's like a ball player.
09:30It's a professional.
09:30He gets up at the plate.
09:31He doesn't care who's pitching.
09:32He gets up there with confidence.
09:34It's the same thing with me.
09:35If you tell me a couple guys are waiting for me, I can handle that.
09:37Why would somebody want to put a gun to the back of your head now?
09:40Well, you know, I have more than dozens of victims.
09:46You know, I bring that count over 100 people.
09:50You know, guys tell you.
09:51You've been involved in hurting, killing.
09:53Killing, shooting, batting, stabbing.
09:56Yeah, more than 100 guys.
09:58And, you know, guys talk that they did this, they did that.
10:01For the most part, they're full of shit.
10:03And when you grow up in the street, you know who's fake and who isn't.
10:06You know when a guy's boisterous and he's full of shit.
10:09I understand the life.
10:10So when you go out and hurt as many people as I did, you know, you're going to get hurt too.
10:14Like I told you, I got hurt a lot of times.
10:16I've been stabbed, baseball batted, hit by cars.
10:18You know, whether I like it or not, it was my past and it could be my future.
10:22However you cut it, it's a huge burden to carry around with you, your past, your past.
10:29Without a doubt.
10:30You know, I use one of my son's friends.
10:32These guys are innocent young kids having a good time.
10:36When he goes home, he puts his head on the pillow, he can sleep sound.
10:41When I go home, if somebody tells you they're sleeping sound, there's something wrong with them if they were doing what we were doing.
10:47You know, when you're involved in what we're involved in, you don't sleep sound.
10:50And I don't believe anybody that says they are.
10:52I think they're lying.
10:54Look, look, look, look.
10:56Come here.
10:57For the next two years, John must report to his parole officer once a week.
11:07He must also stay clear of violence.
11:11One other offence will send him back to prison for a long time.
11:16It was almost a year ago that the bloody battle for power began.
11:37Rick Covini had been shot several times in the head as he sat in this parked station wagon.
11:42These kinds of scenes have been played out so many times in South Philadelphia, it's like an old gangster movie.
11:48The table for nine guests, where 50-year-old Steve Boris and 54-year-old Jeanette Currow were shot,
11:53was still cluttered with dishes and unconsumed food.
11:55Police say Testa arrived and double-parked his black Chevrolet and then went to his front porch,
12:01apparently triggering the bomb when opening his front door.
12:04Philadelphia has seen some of the worst of Mafia violence.
12:10But when tensions sparked all-out war in the 1990s,
12:14the FBI struck an extraordinary deal with a notorious gangster.
12:19This is Ron Previtae.
12:21The evidence he provided brought down the biggest Mafia figures in the city.
12:27I was taken to meet Previtae one morning by a member of his crew.
12:32A one-time corrupt cop, Previtae raked in millions with them all.
12:38But unlike other gangsters I had met,
12:41I was puzzled about why he had not spent a single day behind bars.
12:47He holds court among friends and associates at this local garage.
12:52Come in here.
12:56Hello.
12:57How are you, sir?
12:58Ron, this is Trevor.
12:59Mr. Trevor McDonald.
13:01Ron, nice to meet you.
13:02Nice to meet you, Mr. Trevor.
13:03Yeah.
13:04How long have you been...
13:05Who are these other guys then?
13:07Who are they?
13:07My name is John Scholar.
13:09You own the place?
13:11Yes.
13:11He owns the place.
13:11How's trade these days?
13:13Very good.
13:14Are you the boss?
13:15Yes.
13:15How do you tolerate these guys as part of a regular hangout?
13:18I do.
13:19I love them to come over here.
13:20I've been my friend for a long time.
13:22Very long.
13:23How many years, do you think?
13:24All our lives, you might as well say.
13:25And they don't get in the way of the trade at all?
13:27No, not at all.
13:28You make sure they don't?
13:29Yes.
13:30If I need help, they're here to help me.
13:32What was it, do you think,
13:33made you such an effective member of the mafia?
13:37Yeah.
13:37Me.
13:38My own self.
13:39I am the mafia.
13:41Because, not to use that word,
13:45I'm just an entrepreneur.
13:48I just know how to make money.
13:49What did you think about the setup in the mafia?
13:52I mean, they had codes, loyalty, silence,
13:56that kind of thing.
13:57I never thought nothing of it.
13:58It's bullshit.
13:59The only code is make what you can get.
14:02Take what you can get.
14:03Who cares about that shit?
14:05They're always trying to rob you.
14:07You have to protect what you have.
14:09And when you're with them people,
14:11how do you protect it?
14:12What, are you going to sue them?
14:14You've got to use violence.
14:15You've got to crack them.
14:16You've got to put their heads in the goddamn,
14:19under, and another guy put his head under a hood of a car,
14:22and I said, you know,
14:23I ripped his skin off and gave him a shave.
14:25You know, that's what you have to do, man.
14:27There's no loyalty.
14:28Like, we're outsiders.
14:30Loyalty.
14:30Even though we were with them,
14:32there was no loyalty.
14:33When did you decide to cooperate with the FBI?
14:37Uh, well, I always gave them bits and pieces,
14:41but eventually it came to the point where
14:43they were throwing so much money at me,
14:46besides what I was making.
14:48It seemed like a good deal at the time.
14:50I still wish I didn't do it,
14:51because I'd still be out there doing crime.
14:54You still wish you were out there doing crime?
14:56Sure I do.
14:57You can't get rid of that gene.
14:59You can't get an operation,
15:00and they take it out.
15:01Of course I do.
15:02But I'm not, but, you know, a little bit, but,
15:05but anyway,
15:06the FBI threw so much money at me,
15:09and I'm very weak for money.
15:11How much money did you make
15:12with that deal with the FBI?
15:14How much did they pay you?
15:16Oh, it was over a million dollars.
15:17They paid you over a million dollars?
15:19Yeah, it's on document.
15:20You can get that.
15:21That's a document.
15:21It's out there.
15:22They had to provide it in court,
15:23all the money they gave me.
15:24How did the FBI explain the deal with you?
15:27What did they want you to do?
15:29They wanted me to wear a wire.
15:30They wanted to catch the bad guys who they can't catch
15:33without somebody in there.
15:37There's no such thing as good police work,
15:41investigating.
15:42They do it with people on the inside.
15:46Most crimes are solved with people on the inside.
15:49They wanted me.
15:49I was already on the inside.
15:51That's what they wanted from me,
15:53and that's what I gave them.
15:54How precisely did they put the deal to you?
15:57Did they say,
15:57we'll pay you to wear a wire,
16:00to be an informant,
16:01but you can continue doing your criminal activities on the side?
16:05Right, right.
16:06Well, I'll skip ahead a little bit,
16:09but when they tell you you can continue doing your criminal activities,
16:14you can't do no violence.
16:15Yeah, right, okay.
16:16Were you not worried about the fact that the people you were informing on or against
16:23would come at you at some stage?
16:26I'm going to be perfectly truthful with you.
16:29I don't worry.
16:30I don't give a fuck.
16:31They know where I'm at.
16:32Come on.
16:33I'm here.
16:34I never worried when I was out there,
16:36and I'm not going to worry now.
16:38What about life now, Ron?
16:39I mean, what do you...
16:41Are you still a gangster?
16:42Are you still a criminal?
16:42You're always a gangster.
16:44You're always a criminal when you're a criminal.
16:45All these guys trying to tell you that they're reformed,
16:50and I'm going to hear it tell you it's bullshit.
16:55What are they going to do?
16:56Go be a painter?
16:58How much are you going to make painting?
17:00What are you going to drive a tow truck?
17:02They're not going to make the money driving a truck.
17:04They're liars.
17:06I still do bookmaking.
17:09I do it today.
17:09But that's not legal, surely.
17:12This is a show, isn't it?
17:14I'm not under oath, am I?
17:16No, no, no.
17:17Okay.
17:17But believe me.
17:18Ron, you can say what you like.
17:20You can say what you like to us.
17:21You know that.
17:21It's going to stay just between us.
17:25What's that?
17:25I missed that.
17:27He says, you can say what you like.
17:28It's just going to stay between us.
17:30It's going to stay between us.
17:33That was good.
17:34That was a good one.
17:34That was a good one.
17:35That was a good one.
17:35That was a good one.
17:35Making deals with gangsters like Ron Prevete has been one of the FBI's most effective strategies
17:44against the Mafia.
17:47Prevete's evidence sent 25 of them to prison, including the boss of the Philadelphia mob
17:53and a known killer, Ralph Natale.
17:59He agreed to see me.
18:06Tell us a little bit, if you know, about who the leading organized crime figures are
18:13in and around the area that you grew up in and the area that you operated your business
18:18in, if you know.
18:20I don't know who the organized crime figures are.
18:25Did you ask Mr. Allen to get a 22 automatic with a silencer?
18:31I refuse to answer, Senator.
18:33At the time of that Senate hearing in 1982, Ralph Natale stuck to his promise to respect
18:44the Mafia's code of silence.
18:47He would serve a total of 28 years in prison.
18:54This is the first time a former godfather of the Philadelphia mob has ever agreed to a
19:00television interview.
19:01Mr. Natale, I'm Trevor MacDonald.
19:05My pleasure.
19:06How are you doing?
19:07Very good to meet you.
19:08Thank you for agreeing to see us.
19:10Mr. Natale, did becoming a Mafia boss live up to all your expectations?
19:17I think everybody in the world would love to be treated like a god, famous for 15 minutes
19:23in life.
19:24They would almost do anything.
19:25Well, I was treated like a god because I made my own way.
19:29I did what I wanted to do.
19:32When you were a Mafia boss, you ordered a number of killings.
19:38Positively.
19:38That meant that you had the power of life and death in your own hands.
19:45How did you exercise that?
19:47I didn't care about taking a man's life.
19:49He wanted to interfere with my life or to attempt to take my life or take what we had
19:57on the table, our food, our food meeting, our money, our businesses.
20:03And that's the only way we would, you enforce things out of two things, either love or fear.
20:10Love and get a shot.
20:11It's a terrible thing when you know that another man would put a hole right in your head in
20:17a minute.
20:19It's hard to do with a lot of people.
20:22It wasn't for me.
20:24It really wasn't.
20:26How did you sleep at night?
20:28Oh, I sleep beautiful.
20:30I sometimes I wonder, why don't I feel like people?
20:33You know, when you asked me, why don't I feel like somebody?
20:36Gee, you killed this guy.
20:38You killed one of the head of the Irish mob.
20:40You went right in, boom, bing, bang.
20:43Why don't you feel bad for him?
20:44He was my friend at one time until I knew what he wanted to do.
20:47You killed your friend?
20:48Yes.
20:49Because he wanted to kill me.
20:52He was trying to hire a guy to kill me.
20:55Simple.
20:56I take him off the count.
20:57I'm still trying, though, to get at the emotion of somebody who has in his hands that power
21:04to kill, that power of life and death.
21:07Well, you know what I'm saying?
21:08We had a guy in New Jersey.
21:11Some guy didn't show up and do what he was supposed to do and this and that there.
21:15It's for two or three times.
21:16He sent me an envelope with money at the racetrack.
21:19One of my men brought it.
21:20He said, you know, here's your...
21:23I said, what's in there?
21:23Money.
21:24I said, you bring that back to him.
21:26You tell him I want to see him.
21:28I want to talk to him about something.
21:30He never showed.
21:32And I told this guy, that guy, I want him dead.
21:38I want him dead now.
21:39Well, two or three weeks, he still was breathing, laughing, having fun.
21:44You know what I told him?
21:46One week, I'll be up there, I'll kill him.
21:49If it ain't done within this week, that's when I'm coming up.
21:53Boom.
21:53Three days later, he was dead.
21:55They were afraid.
21:56My own people.
21:57Of course, I was mad.
21:58How did you deal with people who crossed you, betrayed you?
22:05Betrayed me?
22:08One man I gave a pass to in my life.
22:10The rest of them I killed.
22:13Simple.
22:14Did you keep count of the numbers?
22:16No.
22:18Because that's when you're sick.
22:21You're sick then.
22:22Then you're a serial killer.
22:23I'm not a serial killer.
22:25Why?
22:26Because you kill more than one?
22:28You're a serial killer?
22:29I didn't kill people because I got a thrill out of it.
22:32I killed people because that was my life and it was his life.
22:37Simple.
22:38If I said the name Ron Previte to you...
22:41Oh, it's a big, big, fat rat that owes his life to me.
22:45The young man in Philadelphia...
22:46He betrayed you?
22:47Yes.
22:47The young man in Philadelphia wanted to kill him.
22:50Ron Previte is a bunch of shit.
22:52I saved him.
22:52I said, don't you touch that man.
22:54What do you want to do?
22:55Kill everybody?
22:58Let's see what happened.
23:00And he eventually turned on me.
23:03For one reason.
23:05I saved his life.
23:06And he would go around and say,
23:07I saved his life.
23:11I return to the question of...
23:13How do you...
23:14How do you sleep at night remembering having those memories?
23:19I get up.
23:20I go to the bathroom.
23:23I take a piece of shot.
23:24And I go back.
23:27And I go to sleep.
23:30What am I supposed to do?
23:32Say prayers for their souls?
23:37The raids began before dawn and by the time they ended, 110 alleged members of organized crime had been arrested in three states.
23:59Street bosses, underbosses, consigliaries, capos, soldiers, and associates with nicknames like Meatball, Vinnie Carwash, and Johnny Bandana.
24:08In the mafia, there are few certainties, but most of its members know that one day, the FBI will find them, whatever they're called.
24:21Underboss, underboss, William Willie Fingers Catola, showed up at the grand jury, followed by little lollipop, Karna, signed in to appear at the grand jury.
24:30Chingalini is the son of imprisoned mobster Joseph Chicky Chicky.
24:34100 years for Anthony, Tony Dux Corallo.
24:37100 years for Anthony, Fat Tony Salerno.
24:40The penalty was death, and Quack Quack knew it.
24:44I was about to meet someone known as the Yuppie Don, and one of the richest gangsters of all time.
24:51His brilliance for inventing new scams netted the mafia over a billion dollars.
24:57But when the FBI arrested him, things didn't go quite as expected.
25:06Other prisoners in the custody of U.S. Marshals find themselves in handcuffs and leg irons, watched by armed guards.
25:13For $7,000 a week, in cash, and a promise of millions in restitution later,
25:18Francis can live the good life of Beverly Hills.
25:21And now, some of his former mafia partners say he has pulled off his best con job ever on the United States government.
25:32Trevor.
25:33Michael.
25:33How are you?
25:34Thank you very much for allowing us in.
25:36Come on in.
25:38Franzi's most successful job for the mafia involved the setting up of a network of companies
25:43which sold gasoline across America, then cheated the government out of the sales tax.
25:50The authorities promised him leniency if he testified against his bosses.
25:56But Franzi's managed to avoid doing that, and now lives comfortably in California.
26:03See we have the view from up here.
26:05Oh, wow.
26:06And this is kind of my spot here.
26:09This is where I do all my work and relax.
26:12This is nice, nice, sir.
26:12Got my own TV, and everybody knows when I'm in here, they don't cross that line unless they ask me.
26:18There's an invisible line which they're not allowed to cross.
26:20Not really.
26:21This bit is yours.
26:22This is me.
26:23I mean, what did you actually do in your relationship with the authorities?
26:26How did that work out?
26:28I don't think I've ever said this before, but I really led them down a primrose path,
26:33making them believe that I would cooperate with them, but never intending to cooperate.
26:38And it was, you know, it was kind of a dance that I had to play for a while.
26:42And they bought into it because they knew that I could have been a valuable resource for them.
26:47I was, you know, I knew a lot of people.
26:49And I just played that game and used it until they really put me on the spot
26:54and wanted me to testify against a major figure who was also a close friend of mine.
26:59And basically I refused, and that's when I was violated on my parole and thrown into the hole,
27:05and they were pretty upset with me.
27:08When you were living the mob life, how good was that?
27:14You know, listen, I, uh, look, I had my own jet plane.
27:17I had a helicopter.
27:18I had a house in Florida.
27:19I had a 7,000-square-foot house in New York with a racquetball court and two acres of land.
27:25I had a house out here in Marina Del Rey, and I did whatever I pleased.
27:29You made staggering amounts of money.
27:31Yes.
27:33Yeah, we were, uh, at one point in time, I was pulling in close to $10 million a week.
27:38$10 million a week?
27:39$10 million a week.
27:41It was, uh, you know, we were defrauding the government at a tax on every gallon of gasoline,
27:45and, uh, we were selling 500 million gallons of gas a month at 20, 30, 40 cents a gallon that we were keeping.
27:52So it was a staggering amount of money.
27:53And, uh, you know, it became a problem at one point that what to do with the money.
27:57So when you have that problem, you know you're earning.
28:00Um, and, uh...
28:01What did you do with the money?
28:03You know, you know, Trevor, it's, uh, I mean, some of it we put overseas, some of it was in cash,
28:07and I always tell everybody I had a lot of expenses.
28:09Um...
28:10Were you always pursued by people who felt that of all this money you made, you must have kept some of it?
28:17Oh, until today I have people, I mean, nobody would ever believe that I was broke, that I didn't have any money.
28:24I could never convince anybody of that.
28:26It's, uh, people, I think the government still believes that I got money stashed all over the world.
28:31I get questioned about it all the time.
28:33Guys in my former life, a lot of people believe that they think that's the only reason I'm still alive,
28:38because one day they're going to find this money and force me to give it up.
28:43Who knows?
28:44And people say, well, Mike, you still have money buried somewhere.
28:47And I said, listen, if it's there, I doubt I'll ever get a chance to use it.
28:51So what's the difference, you know?
28:52Unlike the other Mafia figures I've met, Franzese has managed to build a successful new life here on America's West Coast.
29:06It's a far cry from his early days, growing up on the streets of Brooklyn.
29:12He'd been born into a Mafia family, dropped out of medical school after two years, and joined the mob.
29:24Following in his father's footsteps, he became a member of the Colombo crime family, and quickly rose up through the ranks.
29:32He was implicated in a vast array of crimes, and made it onto the FBI's most wanted board.
29:39His life in the Mafia came to an end, when he was indicted on 65 counts of tax evasion, racketeering, and grand theft.
29:52Michael agreed to show me what he does for a living these days.
29:57It's a business venture, underpinned by his newfound faith and belief, and one to which he's committed his life.
30:09No one is so bad that they can't be forgiven.
30:18Please give a warm Harvest welcome to Michael Franzese.
30:27Michael is now a devout Christian.
30:29He tours the country as a preacher, charging anything from $5,000 per parents.
30:35He breaks the Mafia's code of silence every time he speaks about his life.
30:43You know, a lot of people call it the Mafia, but here in America, actually, among those that are in it, they don't call it the Mafia at all, do they?
30:50No, and here it's La Cosa Nostra.
30:53It means this thing of ours, and it's similar to the Mafia.
30:56It's hard to believe that Michael Franzese's now very public profile has not attracted the attention of his former colleagues.
31:04What would people in the mob think about the life you now lead?
31:16Well, most of the people are pretty upset about it.
31:18I mean, you know, I'm still till today.
31:20I get, every once in a while, the FBI will come to me and they'll tell me, Michael, be careful.
31:24We're getting word from our informants.
31:26You know, your name is coming up a lot again.
31:29People aren't happy with you.
31:30So, you know, I think they just look at it as a betrayal, and that's it at this point.
31:36If they feel that you've betrayed them, what might their reaction be?
31:41Well, I mean, I've, you know, had a contract on my life.
31:44I'll tell you where the blessing is for me.
31:46The boss of my family, Persico, who was my boss at the time, was now doing life in prison.
31:51He was extremely upset when I walked away, and if he were on the street, I would be in trouble
31:58because I don't believe he would ever rest until I was a dead man.
32:01But, you know, he's doing life in prison.
32:03His son, who took over the family at some point and had that same kind of feeling towards me,
32:09he's doing life in prison.
32:11So it's almost like all my enemies are either dead or in prison for the rest of their lives,
32:15and it just worked out that way.
32:17Do you understand why people might be very skeptical about somebody who occupied such a senior place in the mob
32:23could now profess such a deep Christian faith?
32:28Well, yeah, I understand that.
32:29You know, and part of what I tell people, you know, if I was in the audience listening to me,
32:33I don't know if I'd believe me either because it is a pretty fantastic transformation to be where I was
32:40and have the mentality that I had back then and to be transformed into what I believe now.
32:46You know, Trevor, when you come to Christ, you don't get a lobotomy.
32:49I don't forget anything that I did on the street, and I know I'm capable of doing it again.
32:53But I fight hard against those feelings, and that's how it's worked for me.
32:58I may quite understand why you have changed as a person.
33:02Why do you feel the need to go around the country publicizing what this faith has done for you?
33:08You know, I never, this wasn't a plan of mine.
33:10It just kind of happened.
33:12I'm probably the most fortunate, the most blessed person that you can point to
33:17because, honestly, I should be dead or in prison for the rest of my life.
33:21You spend 20 years on the street, you are blessed if you can get out of that and have a transformation.
33:27And, you know, and I don't forget that.
33:30I remember that almost daily.
33:31Michael's transformation has given him the trappings of a comfortable existence.
33:43She's actually going outside the sidewalk, so I probably want me to figure out.
33:48But his family knows they'll never totally escape the shadow of his former life.
33:53Gotcha.
34:09You could kill somebody, business, and go eat after that.
34:14Just as callous as that.
34:16That's what cozy northeastern is.
34:18If you have a conscience, you're in trouble.
34:23Guys talk that they did this, they did that.
34:27For the most part, they're full of shit.
34:29I have more than dozens of victims.
34:33I bring that count over 100 people.
34:39In his 25 years in the Mafia, John Elite's life was scarred by violence.
34:45He says he's trying to put behind him the memory of those he killed and the many more he hurt.
34:54But how does a man, brutalised by what he's done, adjust to a normal life?
35:00John is taking me to meet someone who helps him keep out of trouble and stay out of prison.
35:09What do you think your friends in the Mafia would have thought if they knew you were seeing and confiding, to some extent, in a therapist?
35:19Well, a lot of guys in the life are dummies, so, you know, they're morons.
35:24They would think you're talking about actual crimes or something, because they wouldn't understand how that therapy works.
35:29And it's not the case.
35:31You're more so talking about your personality and the issues that control your personality or your thoughts.
35:39You found it useful to see her?
35:41Yeah, very useful.
35:43When I was under stress, they were obsessed on illness for some reason.
35:47And not really what was at hand, which was the violence that was going on in the street.
35:52So it was kind of crazy what I was thinking.
35:55Instead of worrying about shootings and killings and getting killed and who you kill,
36:00I would redirect my thoughts to something ridiculous as a flu, say, and over-exaggerate that.
36:09Because I guess I didn't want to deal with, you know, the reality of what was really on my mind.
36:18A couple of times a week, Elite sees his therapist.
36:23Hey, hello.
36:25Come in.
36:26Come in.
36:27You know the drill.
36:29I certainly do.
36:31How did you approach a therapy session with somebody who'd had such an extraordinarily violent life?
36:40The first thing I wanted to know was what his experience was in prison.
36:46And when I learned that he had been in isolation for so many years,
36:51I knew immediately he'd have to have suffered from post-traumatic stress.
36:55It's strange to hear you talk like that because I would have thought the first concern of yours would have been not so much his isolation in prison,
37:02but what he'd done to get himself there.
37:05Well, I had to learn about his coping skills.
37:09Because if I'm going to work with him, I have to know how did he deal with the worst.
37:15Because if he's out here and he wants to go straight, which he's made very clear to me,
37:20I need to know, okay, what are your coping skills when something really bad is going to happen that you hate?
37:27How are you going to handle that?
37:28Were you always surprised that a person with such a violent past, with such an amazingly horrific past, would come to someone like you?
37:39Absolutely.
37:40And I'm amazed that he could even do that because I don't know, I really don't know that person.
37:49See, I see the heart of John, not the horror.
37:53I see what I call the heart of him, not his shadow.
37:56Is it possible for you to say whether John has actually managed to turn his life around?
38:03So far, yes, I can say that so far.
38:07But as far as a future, I'm no fortune teller.
38:10I don't know what anyone's future will be.
38:13I don't know if there's a trigger that he won't be able to hold.
38:18So I can't predict, but I can tell you so far, absolutely.
38:22I have never, never seen any family of any member of that life that hasn't gone through tremendous challenges and struggles as a result of that person's membership in that life.
38:51At 12 years old, I wanted to be a captain in the Gambino family.
38:55That was my goal.
38:57Not to be a lawyer, not to be a president of the United States.
39:00I wanted to be a captain in the Gambino family because that's what I idolized.
39:03When I go home, if somebody tells you they're sleeping sound, there's something wrong with them if they were doing what we were doing.
39:15Those days are done.
39:16I ruined that years ago.
39:17I can't get that back.
39:18For as long as he could remember, John Elite dreamed of becoming part of the Mafia.
39:34His story is typical of many young men who come from neighborhoods like these.
39:39Well, that's where you grew up?
39:42Yeah, right through there.
39:45There's all my friends lived on this block in the back on a corner.
39:48My childhood friend used to live in this house.
39:53So this is very much your area?
39:55Yeah, this is my area.
39:56This brings back some memories.
39:59We ran these streets day and night from little kids as good kids, and we ran them as we got bad, too.
40:05What are your reflections, John, when you come back to this place today?
40:09Oh, there's so many memories, good and bad, and just I love being here.
40:14You just feel like you're back home.
40:16Was it always a breeding ground for Mafia crime?
40:19Oh, yeah.
40:19As a kid, everybody in this neighborhood was involved with the streets, so I was educated here more in the mob life and the street life than anything legitimate.
40:30Do you remember the first time you crossed the line into the world of crime?
40:38Uh, depending on what you're talking about.
40:42If you're talking about the line of crime of violence, as far as hurting somebody, I was very young.
40:46As far as shooting somebody, I was probably about 20 at the time, 19 or 20 or so.
40:53Baseball batting, 16, 17, that started.
40:56What was the incident when you shot somebody at the age of 19 or 20?
40:59Retribution for one of my other friends getting shot.
41:03So, uh, I just, uh, went back and shot a guy that shot one of my friends.
41:09And, you know, it was every day.
41:11It was, it wasn't like anything specific.
41:13A guy goes to work every day and he delivers milk.
41:16We went to work every day and hurt somebody, shot somebody, or killed somebody.
41:19It was nothing, uh, you get used to it after a while.
41:22It was, it was nothing but, uh, a regular day routine at work.
41:26My brother was here.
41:30My brother, my eyes are too many dogs to see it.
41:33Really?
41:33Today, John really comes back to the streets he once controlled.
41:38We played baseball together when we were kids.
41:40He has no reason to do so, and the risk of reprisals remain.
41:45Good, good.
41:46It's pretty good.
41:46It felt good.
41:47Everything's good.
41:47It felt good.
41:49Elite accepts that as the cost of attempting to change his life around.
41:57His life of crime afforded him the luxury of millions in his early twenties.
42:02is now at 52 he has to start again these images conjure up a picture of what life could be for
42:20you on the good side but it also talks about the horror of being in prison and on the run
42:27I used I joked about this no I never read the small print because when you read the small print
42:32it's not all what it's cracked up to be you watch kids out on the street today they see me and some
42:38of them understand a little bit about the life through family through friends and they have a
42:42diluted version of it or they see me say well geez he's a nice guy because they only see me on the
42:47surface they don't see the other side of me when I was killing and hurting people on a regular basis
42:51and they can't really picture it because they weren't there you wish you could take that kid
42:55and tell you here watch the other side of me if you think I'm such a nice guy and watch me butcher
43:00this guy and then understand stay away from this life because it's bullshit so you try you wish you
43:07can teach him this is a shortcut to hell you're going to live a good life and then you're going
43:11to suffer like no one's ever suffered before you're in solitary confinement guys can't do three weeks in
43:16solitary confinement I spent almost a decade locked down a 23-hour lockup but when you came out of a
43:22prison like that did you consciously decide to take another course in life or did you think I must be
43:29more careful and not get caught when I'm sitting in that cell in Brazil and everybody's turning on
43:37me and I'm getting word through smuggled phones and violent myself in that jail to survive and I'm
43:43saying to myself I still believe in this somewhere in my mind I'm believing in something and I'm getting
43:49phone calls well your two cousins testified against you your other cousin testified against you two
43:53business partners testified against you and you start saying where is all this loyalty obviously I
43:58believed in the Gambino family which is a joke those same guys I didn't see them giving an envelope
44:05to my kid's mother who's my wife where was that envelope for her for my children to live well when
44:11guys are stealing my nightclub money where's that guy that's supposed to shoot him in the head because
44:15I'm still in that life where are they they tell me things are too hot they hang up phones on me they
44:20steal my money they didn't steal ten dollars they were stealing millions and then I started realizing
44:26when I came back into the States and I got the full paperwork how many guys turned on me and I says
44:32well this life's over and I believed in something that didn't exist and and I learned to to turn my
44:40cheeking and go the other way and live like everybody else does like a normal human being and enjoy life the
44:46right way can you ever leave that life entirely behind you can you ever reach a stage where it
44:53doesn't in any way impinge on your life now no I don't think you can ever leave it entirely uh you
45:00know I can use any a doctor's always going to be a doctor when retires a ballplay is always going to be a
45:06a gangster but because I quit doesn't mean the rest of the world quit and on whether I like it or not
45:17that pass is going to follow me I just got to deal with it the correct way now
45:21for more than a hundred years the mafia has always succeeded in seducing young men into its service
45:39tonight in New York City it's estimated that there are more than 7,000 members still going about their
45:50business
45:50there's a brand new case for DCI banks Thursday night at 9 here on ITV when a body's found in a
46:13ravine Friday night final time for the remaining celebrities in brand new Bear Grylls mission
46:18survive and a look ahead to Easter Monday in a brand new drama on its way about the use of DNA in
46:24forensics John Simm stars in code of a killer next tonight the news
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