In organized crime families, blood runs thick. So when John "Sonny" Franzese, notorious underboss of the feared Colombo crime family, was betrayed by his own son, John Franzese Jr., in open court, it sent shockwaves through the mafia underground.
The Colombo family has long been one of America’s most powerful mafia operations. Based out of New York City with influence extending throughout the Northeast and beyond, it rose to prominence under original boss Joseph Profaci in the mid-20th century.
Known as one of the "Five Families" dominating the Italian mob landscape in New York alongside rivals like the Gambinos and Genoveses, the Colombos commanded fear and respect throughout the crime world. Over decades they racked up untold sums from racketeering, extortion, gambling, fraud, and murder while dodging authorities.
Full initiation into a family’s upper ranks as a “made man” typically requires proving oneself by committing a murder under direction of the bosses. As a reward, mafia soldiers then gain a cut of all illicit profits earned on their assigned turf. They also enjoy support of the much-feared organization against rivals or legal threats.
But this power and protection comes at a cost. Breaking the mafia’s code of omertà silence to aid authorities is perhaps the cardinal sin. Informants find themselves marked men facing likely death sentences. Even direct relatives don’t get a pass. Blood or not, snitches face grim fates if outed.
So Sonny Franzese occupied the rarest of positions on the street and in the underworld. Both a “made man” in the Colombos for over 6 decades and the father of a group of children with his own son John Jr. being “straightened out” to join the upper ranks in the 1980s.
Which makes what transpired between crime boss father and mobster son so shocking in 2010…
The Promise and Perils of a Mafia Prince
John Franzese Jr. grew up in the 1960s fully immersed in mob culture. His father Sonny was a renowned capo in the Profaci crime family (later called the Colombos) reporting directly to boss Joe Colombo by the late 1960s. Known for his fearsome brutality, Sonny Franzese was a fixture in New York‘s underworld.
Meanwhile, Sonny groomed his eldest son John Jr. as his heir apparent. As John Jr. later told Newsday: “I was expected to follow in my Dad’s footsteps. I was fascinated by that life early on.” He received special privileges rare for even a made man’s son, allowed access to mafia social clubs and high-stakes card games typically off-limits. “He was treated like a prince in the mob," recalled one former Colombo associate.
But John Jr.‘s early years were filled with trauma and violence as well. His charismatic but controlling father kept his wife and children walking on eggshells in fear of his temper. Actual beatings were reserved for those outside the family, but the threat loomed inside the Franzese home. “He ruled with an iron hand,” John Jr. said later.
At just 8 years old in 1964, he watched in horror as his father mercilessly tortured a rival gang member named Vincent "Jimmy Sinatra" Craparotta in their basement before finally killing him in the backyard. “There was blood everywhere…I can remember it like it happened 5 minutes ago,” a visibly emotional Franzese Jr. recounted in a 2022 YouTube interview.
This early exposure to the brutal realities from his father’s world left deep scars. John Franzese Jr. eventually spiraled into alcoholism and drug addiction as a teenager seeking to numb the psychological pain. He also racked up a rap sheet with multiple arrests for assault, theft, and vandalism. But Sonny intervened every time, using his influence over law enforcement to bury most charges against the teenage John Jr.
Desperate for his approval, John Jr. followed Sonny into "the life" after dropping out of Hofstra University in the late 1970s. Benefiting from his last name and connections, John Jr. started running mafia gambling, loansharking, and protection rackets across Long Island while also dabbling in the exploding market for cocaine.
Over the next decade, John Jr. simultaneously grew closer to yet more distant emotionally from his father. He earned made man status in the mid-1980s, taking a sacred initiation oath of allegiance to seal his status as a lifetime Colombos member. This brought John Jr. deeper into Sonny’s inner circle than ever before. They partnered across various rackets, and when Michael Franzese joined their crew, the Franzese name reached the height of its power around New York circa 1986-88.
The gift and curse of his burgeoning success, however, was that it fed John Jr.’s desperation for Sonny’s validation without ever fully achieving it. He later confessed:
“I wanted nothing more than my dad to love me, accept me, and be proud of me…But somewhere along the line I realized that it didn’t matter what I did, it was never going to be good enough."
A Troubled Crew and Falling Out
Now a rising force seriously expanding the family’s rackets, John Franzese Jr.‘s earned income soared into seven figures by the late 1980s. But his newfound success and status carried darker consequences as well. Paranoid about both rival gangs and intensified FBI surveillance, Franzese Jr. started wearing a bulletproof vest constantly. He brought armed bodyguards whenever he went out in public.
Simmering tensions in the crime family also threatened John Jr. and Sonny’s position. After an internal power struggle, crafty Sicilian Vic Orena wound up as new boss of the Colombos in 1991. He resented the Franzese crew‘s wealth and influence as holdovers from the previous regime.
Around that same time in fall 1988, John Jr.’s younger brother Michael Franzese publicly quit the mafia life and entered FBI protective custody after being charged with massive financial crimes. Feeling cornered and facing up to 20 years prison, Michael secured a plea deal which required wearing a wire against former associates – including his own father and brother in the Colombos leadership.
John Jr. viewed this betrayal by Michael as unforgivable, calling him a “stool pigeon” and vowing violent retaliation if they ever crossed paths again. But Michael escaped before the Colombos could get to him. Still John Jr.’s own methods were growing increasingly erratic and risky under the escalating pressures.
Throughout 1988-89, John Jr. used heroin, cocaine and alcohol almost daily alongside his trusted bodyguard Bobby Bogan. Seeking drug money, the pair brazenly manufactured fake extortion threats against local businesses already under their protection racket umbrella to shake down more fees. When word inevitably reached the Colombos administration, it confirmed suspicions of just how out of control Sonny Franzese’s crew had grown.
Finally in December 1989, Franzese Jr.’s house of marked cards came crashing down. Rival Orena faction members lured John Jr. and Bobby with the promise of a huge score, only to viciously beat them instead. Franzese Jr. was hospitalized with broken ribs under a suspected message from the new boss.
Humiliated by the public attack, John Jr.’s made man privileges were immediately suspended by the family as punishment. His drug use also permanently severed the bond with Sonny, who cast his eldest son out of the crew he‘d been born into. “I lost the confidence of the administration. But I think at that point my father lost his confidence in me too as his successor,” John Jr. said.
This decisive rupture marked the beginning of the end between crime boss father and mob prince son.
The Road to Redemption
By his own admission, John Franzese Jr. became a “full-blown alcoholic and addict” through the late 1980s and early ‘90s. His days devolved into drinking binges fueled by a dangerous cocktail of substances – “doing eight bags of heroin and a pint of vodka daily,” he confessed.
His now estranged father Sonny certainly did nothing to help matters. The supremely confident boss doubled down on loan sharking and gambling across Brooklyn thinking himself untouchable after skating past dozens of charges over the decades. He ran up millions in illicit profits even as the whole crime family descended into all-out civil war between rival factions throughout 1991-93 over control of those same rackets.
After one final arrest for a drunken bar fight in 1991, Franzese Jr.‘s own spiral pushed him near rock bottom. He entered rehab in 1992 and soon found stability working in the treatment field helping others like himself. Franzese Jr. also reconciled with former girlfriend Cristina and credits the birth of their son John Franzese III in 1994 as a further wake-up call keeping him straight.
Meanwhile Sonny kept cheating justice to retain his street legend status. Now 70 but still intimidating, not even a shocking December 2001 arrest with recorded evidence of new shakedowns could keep Sonny behind bars long. Benefiting from a string of mistrials and deadlocked juries unwilling to cross the infamous gangster, Sonny again ducked a guilty verdict during a final 2007 trial. Defying all odds, he tasted freedom once more.
Over 2 decades removed from the bad old days, John Jr. had achieved a balance eluding him growing up in Sonny’s criminal web. But in late 2008 tragedy struck when his oldest son John III died unexpectedly from a drug overdose. “It devastated me…” John Jr. later said, and reopened unresolved wounds regarding his own father.
The Breaking Point: Turning Against His Father
Grappling again with grief and his past, John Franzese Jr. initiated contact with Sonny in 2008 for the first time in nearly 20 years. “I wanted to try to recapture time, make amends…” he explained. They met, and John Jr. explored working on a proposed documentary with Sonny based on the old mobster‘s legendary criminal career.
Deep down, however, John Jr. harbored bitterness toward his father that their renewed contact failed to heal. These emotions exploded after federal investigators confronted John Jr. in spring 2009 seeking his assistance with ongoing Sonny investigations. Sensing their years-long pursuit of the slippery Mr. Franzese might stick this time with his son‘s help, prosecutors dangled a new incentive – likely just probation for John Jr.‘s own admitted past crimes if he testified against Sonny.
Weighing everything – his father‘s shunning of him years earlier, Sonny‘s refusal to fade quietly into old age pulling down long prison time, and most centrally, John Jr.‘s lingering resentment – flipping government witness seemed almost fated.
“I felt betrayed by my father, and I felt like I had no other choice. [It was] not easy but it’s something I had to do,” he later declared.
By this point Sonny Franzese was nearing 90 years old. He‘d spent over a third of his life imprisoned for an array of mob activities yet stubbornly fought on after every release. So when the Feds again cornered Sonny with a barrage of new charges in 2008 related to past Colombo shakedowns and contract murders, he true to form refused a plea bargain that potentially meant dying in jail.
The crusty old mobster figured he could again somehow snake his way to another mistrial or hung jury. But this time – with the prosecution‘s star witness his own flesh and blood – Sonny failed to account for the betrayal brewing inside his own family.
In early 2010 when John Franzese Jr. entered court prepared to testify against his father, it represented the ultimate payback after a lifetime under Sonny‘s thumb. Everything the feared capo had taught his son about loyalty meant nothing before the blood oath of Cosa Nostra – omertà or silence – which John Jr. was prepared to break in dramatic fashion.
"I felt somehow that I owed something as a result of being involved in that life — to do some harm to other human beings. This was my chance to cut that off,” John Jr. explained his motivations to rapt jurors.
He then provided gripping testimony detailing Sonny‘s direct participation in no less than three cold-blooded murders, multiple loan sharking and bookmaking operations forcing victims to pay 500% interest rates on debts, and millions more swindled through gasoline tax scams bilking state and federal governments alike throughout Sonny‘s 50-plus years running with the mob. The aging Franzese patriarch watched on, expressionless, from just feet away.
After two full weeks the emotional testimony concluded, leaving the court stunned by its explosive revelations. Ultimately on January 14, 2010 the judge delivered his sentence: 200 months in federal prison for the 93-year old Sonny Franzese. At his advanced age it effectively became a death penalty – virtually assuring he would die locked behind bars.
Thanks to the step-down provided by his son betraying sacred mafia code, Sonny‘s wasted twilight years would instead be spent cooped up in a cell until the bitter end. It was an outcome almost no one had envisioned before John Jr. flipping to facilitate it.
The Aftermath: Perspectives on a Mob Betrayal
Initial reaction sent shockwaves through mafia circles. The Franzese name commanded respect across La Cosa Nostra dating back before the Commission sanctioned the Colombos’ official formation in 1961. So for the son and heir of one of the family’s most influential capos ever to turn rat seemed unthinkable.
Some hardcore mafiosi like Gambino family scion John Gotti Jr. sharply denounced Franzese Jr. as a rat bastard violating the fundamental no-snitching code. His own brother Michael expressed only shame and regret.
But certain former Franzese crew members were more conciliatory given the long history they‘d witnessed:
“I know his father was very demanding and nothing John Jr. did was ever good enough… He didn‘t betray Sonny Franzese the father, he testified against Sonny Franzese the gangster, the monster," argued one.
Retired NYPD detective Sonny Grosso, whose work helped convict Sonny back in the 1970s also defended Franzese Jr.‘s testimony as long overdue:
“I understand it‘s difficult to put your own father away, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. John Jr. fought a lot of demons trying to break away from that life, and this gave him a chance to be at peace”.
Most surprisingly, as the old man‘s health rapidly deteriorated through 2018 and 2019 back on the streets, even unforgiving Sonny seemed to understand his firstborn turning against him as necessity rather than weakness.
According to John Jr., Sonny bore no visible grudges for the damning testimony during their handful of meetings before his death. The aging mobster lived his few remaining months out of prison confined to a wheelchair, but he died peacefully at home in late January 2020 aged 100.
“My father understood why I did what I did. And I think at the end, he respected it on some level,” John Jr. reflected that year.
Over a decade removed from those tense 2010 courtroom scenes, Franzese Jr. stands resolutely by his choice to bring down his own father as the only way to escape Sonny‘s criminal gravity. He parlayed cutting that final tie into sustained sobriety now exceeding 30 years while advocating for addiction recovery.
No longer defined as the accursed son of a feared mafia legend, John Franzese Jr. found redemption on his own terms:
“That life takes and takes until you have nothing left to give. I had to look in the mirror and decide who I was without the Franzese name. Testifying gave me the strength to walk away forever”.