The Time Jews and Italians Got Indicted Together My Wildest Case Ever

➡ Michael Francis shares his experience with a case he was involved in, titled “Wise Guys, Rabbis and the FBI”. He was indicted along with Mel Cooper, the main defendant, and Jimmy Rotunda. Despite his insistence that he had no involvement, he was charged with a big racketeering case. The case revolved around a leasing company run by eight Jews and seven Italians, accused of running the biggest loan sharking scheme in New York City, which Francis disputes.
➡ This story is about New York in the 70s and 80s, a time when the Mafia was involved in legitimate businesses and corruption was common. It focuses on Mel Cooper, a businessman who was involved in various deals and businesses, similar to Donald Trump. Cooper was eventually indicted under the RICO statute as part of U.S. attorney Rudolph Giuliani’s efforts to clean up organized crime. Despite a mix-up that led to his temporary release, Cooper was eventually convicted and served a 30-year prison sentence.
➡ The speaker was acquitted of charges and celebrated by getting married in Las Vegas. He had business dealings with Mel Cooper’s company, including financing a movie and investing in a club. He was also the target of an undercover FBI operation investigating organized crime’s involvement in professional boxing, but was found to have committed no crimes. The speaker also mentions his brother’s attempts at illegal activities and Al Sharpton’s questionable practices.
➡ The speaker discusses his experiences with the FBI, trials, and his time in prison. He mentions how he avoided incriminating himself or his friends, and how he managed to navigate the legal system. He also talks about his involvement in a window business deal and how he refused to testify against a friend, which led to more prison time. He ends by recommending a book that provides insight into the workings of the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the mafia.
➡ The speaker encourages everyone to take care of their health for a long life and hopes for peace worldwide. They invite listeners to join their online community platform, which offers courses, discussions, and a sense of community for a small fee. The platform aims to help people learn, connect, and support each other.

Foreign. Welcome to another sit down with Michael Francis. Hope everybody is doing well. All is very good, very blessed on this end, my friends. And as always, I give all the praise, honor, glory and thanksgiving to our God for that. Hope you all had a terrific Easter. Mine was wonderful. Very, very blessed. The most important day, the most significant day in the history of all mankind. Some people may not know it, but Easter Sunday, Resurrection Sunday certainly is. So I hope you all enjoyed it. God bless everyone. I want to thank everybody that’s been subscribing. You know, we have that goal to reach 2 million by my birthday on May 27.

My team has challenged me to do so ever since I’ve been talking about it. A lot of people have subscribed, several thousand. So I’d appreciate it if you do that. Try to help me get to that goal if you do. So we’re going to plant something nice around my birthday. A big live, big Q and A. We’re going to do something really nice for all of you, just as a show of my appreciation. For all those of you that have subscribed already, thank you very much. And for all my loyal subscribers that have been around for so long, you know how I feel about you.

I wouldn’t have a platform without you. So thank all of you for following me and for being so loyal. Today I have something that I’m very close to and it’s about a book that’s been written and it’s called Wise Guys, Rabbis and the FBI. It was written by a friend of mine, a one time friend of mine, Mel Cooper, and his writer, JA Schwarzman is his name. I think you can get it on Amazon. But it’s a story of a case that I’m very familiar with, intimately familiar with, because I was one of the defendants. I was indicted in that case and Mel Cooper was actually the main defendant.

But myself and a fellow by the name of Jimmy Rotunda, who was another maid guy, he was. He and I were the lead defendants in that case. Giuliani eventually indicted us. It was a Southern District case and it was. It was crazy. There’s a crazy story behind it. I was coming in from Florida, I was on my plane. I had a Lear 25A at that time. And I land in the airport in Suffolk County. I get off the plane, there’s FBI agents all over the place. Place come down the steps. Michael Francis are under arrest. They read me my rights, they handcuff me and they throw me in the car.

I figured we’re going to Brooklyn, you know, that’s really my district. I figured maybe it was the gas case. Who know what they were cooking up on me now, this would have been my fifth or sixth indictment. So as we’re driving, we’re starting to drive. We get on the Long Island Expressway and they say, hey, guys, where we going? He said, we’re going to Manhattan. I said, why are we going to Manhattan? I said, aren’t we going to Brooklyn? I said, no, we’re going to Manhattan. I says, for what? Well, you’ve been charged in a case there by Giuliani.

I said, charged with what in Manhattan? I said, what do I do there? I said, if anything would come out of the Eastern District, not the Southern District. They said, no, you’ve been charged with a big racketeering case. Loan shocking case. I couldn’t figure out what they wanted, honestly. I’m trying to rack my brains. I’m saying, what are they talking about? What are they doing? What are they cooking up? Now they’re going to frame me like they frame my father. That’s what I’m thinking. All right, everyone, quick thing before we continue. You know what everyone tells me at events? They come up and they say, michael, I bought your wine just to support you.

And then they say, but I kept buying it because it’s so darn good. And that’s the best compliment I ever get. So enjoy it. Here it is. Let’s get back to it. So we get there, they process me. I hadn’t been indicted yet. Now I was only charged with this. And they process me, and they give me some of the stuff, and I look at it and I said, are they kidding me? I don’t know anything about this. This has nothing to do with me. I knew the company, I knew some of the participants, but I wasn’t involved.

So I get a hold of my lawyer, I go see him the next day, John Jacobs. And we go for our arraignment. They let me out on a million dollar bail, I think it was. And it was funny that day of my arraignment in the courtroom, Giuliani did make an appearance. And he looks at me, passes by my table at the defendant’s table, and he says, francis, if I convict you on this case, you’re going to get double what your father got. I’m giving you 100 years. Now, my father got 50, so double at 100. And I’ll never forget, I looked at him, I said, hey, Rudy, I beat you guys four times already.

Let’s go for round five, you know, because this Would have been my, my fifth trial that I would have been on. And now we start to fight the case and I start to get the information. And quite honestly, people, I had nothing to do with it. I really didn’t. But I’m saying, my gosh, I got to go for a million dollars easy. I already had to put up money for, for bail. I got to go for a million dollars easy. I’m going to be tied up in court. I said, this is going to take a year, a year and a half, two years out of my life.

So I told my lawyer, I said, look, I got nothing to do with this. I said, I want to go in and speak to the Assistant U.S. attorney before they indict me and let them understand they made a mistake. Michael, you don’t do that. You never go beforehand, blah, blah, blah. I didn’t always listen to my attorney because I felt my father got railroaded. You know, attorneys have a certain thing you just don’t do. I don’t always agree with it. And I, I exert myself if I don’t agree with my. I’ll tell him and I’ll take the weight if I’m wrong.

I said, no, you set it up. I’m going in, speak to the assistant. I said, I don’t want to go through all of this as you’re going to get rich on this. I said, I don’t want to go through it. We set up an appointment. Mel Roth, I think was the name of the U.S. attorney, the assistant U.S. attorney. Giuliani wasn’t in a room. And I go sit down. And I said, ask me any question that you want. The FBI was there, court reporter. They were taking everything down, right? It was recording. And it started. They don’t tell me much, but I told them, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

I said, you could put me under oath right now. I said, you know, making a mistake. And we go through maybe a 45 minute session. They asked me a couple of questions. I don’t remember now. A couple of days later, I get indicted. So at that point, it didn’t mean anything. I didn’t do myself any good. Right? Okay, so here’s what happens now. We start the trial. There was seven Italians and eight Jews. The eight Jews were actually running the company. It was a leasing company. And they had about 1500 legitimate leases out, and they had maybe 15 Shylock loans that they were putting out.

I don’t know how much. A couple hundred thousand. They said it was a couple of million. Dollars. Trust me when I tell you this. We had more money on the street than they had out at that time. I want to read something from it. But this was the basis of it. I want to read something from the book to kind of set it up for you so you understand. You want to know how the Jews and the Italians kind of got together during that time. We did work together. This is the preface. This is the true story of Mel Cooper.

In the 1980s, the US government claimed Cooper was the mastermind behind the biggest loan sharking scheme in New York City. Cooper says he was just a businessman. Well, he wasn’t just a businessman, but this wasn’t the biggest loan sharking scheme in New York City. Trust me. We had a lot more money on the street than these guys did. The government claimed his money came from the Mafia. Cooper claimed his money came from a group of Long island rabbis. And Cooper was right. The government was claiming that I put up the money. Jimmy Rotunda put up the money.

We didn’t put up 5 cents. At the end of the day, it was the rabbis. The government had it wrong, or maybe they had it right and they just wanted to put it on us because it was a more colorful case at that time, who knows? Cooper’s story is a window on the freewheeling nature of New York in the 1970s and the early 80s, where legitimate business in the Mafia shared the city, corruption prevailed and people of all walks of life mixed easily as money flowed. It’s true, we were involved in a lot of legitimate businesses back then.

I was involved with GE Credit. I was involved with Mazda Motors of America. I had a lot of things going on and so did a lot of other guys. The Gambinos had stuff. We were. We were intertwined with business and people. We didn’t have to go and put our. Put the arm on business guys. They would come to us looking for help, looking for money, looking to defraud their own companies. But we had that kind of, you know, mixture in life back then. It was really freewheeling. And New York was a great place at that time, better than it is today.

Trust me on that. This narrative is based on extensive interviews with Cooper, as well as with many of the central characters. He relies on thousands of pages of trial transcripts and legal documents, as well as published autobiographies by individuals who appear in this book, one of them being me. Our interviews included co conspirators, friends, lawyers, members of the Cooper family and FBI agents. Mel Cooper’s 1985 trial was part of then U.S. attorney Rudolph Giuliani’s efforts to the cleanup organized crime in New York City. This is when it all started. I was one of the first to be indicted under the RICO statute.

The case was one of Giuliani’s first attempts to employ RICO statutes to target the Mafia. Before there was the famous Commission trial, there was Mel Cooper’s trial. Absolutely true. We were one of the first. Cooper’s story overlaps with the story of another New York businessman, a very prominent one in the 1980s. Like his contemporary Donald Trump, Cooper was fixated on what he refers to as deals in quotes. As he moved from one deal to the next, Cooper involved his family in a network of businesses, building layers of corporations and entities. He used lawyers to insulate himself at every step.

He even used the same lawyers as Donald Trump, With Rudolph Giuliani playing a central role in the destiny of both. Obviously, Giuliani was on the other side with Trump. Trump had nothing to do with this case. Let me make that very clear. But Giuliani did represent Donald Trump in cases afterwards as his lawyer. But where one dealmaker became President of the United States, the other found himself in prison. In a story of choices and changes that is still being written today. And I got to thank you for participating a little bit in this book. Let me tell you what happened else with Mel Cooper.

Very interesting. Mel Cooper had already been indicted in Suffolk County. He goes on trial in the federal case. He gets convicted in that case and he got 30 years. So he’s in federal custody, but he’s going to make a deal in Suffolk County. So while he’s in custody, the feds bring him out to Suffolk county to stand before the judge. He gets before the judge, they dismiss the Suffolk county case because he already got 30 years with the feds, right? So now they’re bringing him back to the cell and he figures the feds are going to pick him up and take him back to federal detention.

Well, he’s there about two hours in a holding cell. One of the Suffolk county sheriffs comes and gets him and brings him up front. He’s not handcuffed, he doesn’t understand why. And by mistake they give him his clothing and they release him. The feds either made a mistake, they didn’t have a detainer on him, whatever, but they release him. He’s got a 30 year prison sentence with the feds and they release him. So he walks out and he’s scot free. And he stayed out for a while until he got caught and he Brought him back and obviously he finished up his sentence.

But you see how they can make a mistake. Really crazy, right? They make mistakes, trust me. Like that this guy got released, you know, doing a 30 year prison sentence. So anyway, go back to the trial, the federal trial. We’re, we’re on trial for several months and a lot of testimony again that I allegedly delivered the money. They really didn’t prove it. I want to tell you how it went. The seven Italian guys in this case who everybody thought were going to get convicted, we all got acquitted. And the eight Jews who everybody thought was going to go free all got convicted.

And let me tell you, the jury got it right now, here was the thing. And I can tell you, the whole trial went along. One funny thing. Very, very funny. There was one union guy, he was considered one of the Italian guys, right? He was a union guy. And they mentioned him in the opening statement. They talk about him for five minutes. The U.S. attorney as he’s given his opening argument, then you don’t hear anything about him for months. Now we’re on trial for months. I think I was on eight or nine counts of this anyway, right? We’re in trial for months.

You don’t hear a word, not a word about this guy. So now we’re ready to sum up the case. We, we, we closed our case. The government closed their case. We’re ready to sum it up for the jury. And I tell, I tell this guy, forget his name. Honestly. I say, listen, don’t worry about it. You’re going home. I said, the jury, the jury don’t even know who you are. They think you’re one of the lawyers. You’re going home. Don’t worry about it. They never even mention your name. The last day, just before closing arguments, the prosecutor gets up and he’s making the case against this union guy.

And he says, your Honor, I have one tape to play. He plays the tape and here’s what happens in the tape. It’s five minutes, but it’s this guy on the tape in the conference room in Mel Cooper’s company. And he’s sitting with a number of guys and he says, quote, these guys, let me tell you, what we’re going to discuss now is a crime, it’s criminal. And if this room is bugged, we’re all going to jail. That was the tape, okay? Boom. The jury, we’re all laughing. All the Italian guys were laughing because we thought this was a guy who was going home.

He never divulged what was on that tape of Course he knew. He just never said anything. You know, he was. Maybe he was embarrassed. But anyway, he got convicted. He got seven years. Seven years on that one five minute tape. That was it. And obviously they proved, you know, what he did after that fight. They said, this is what he. This is what he said was the crime. And they explained it something to do with the money. But, oh, it was so funny, I got to tell you. It said that the guy got seven years, but we were all cracking up anyway, so now it goes to the jury and when you’re on all of these counts the way the judge wanted it, he said, listen, we’re going to read count one on all 15 defendants, count two on all 15 defendants, count three.

So there was like 30 counts to this indictment. So, my gosh, we had to wait, you know, and I’m spread out. I’m on the first count, I’m on two or three in the middle, and I’m on the last count. So I said, my God, any one of these counts I go down on, I’m going to get time on, right? So they go through it. They go through. It took maybe an hour and a half to read the verdict. I get acquitted on all counts, right? And all the Italian guys, same thing. We all get acquitted. We polled the jury afterwards because we just wanted to see what the jury made of this whole case.

Because they got it right. They convicted all the Jews, all the Italians went free. You never heard of that before. So I went up to one jury. He was sitting next to the foreman. He wasn’t the foreman, but this guy was like. Like this the whole time looking at me. I said, oh, this guy, he’s going to convict us, no doubt about it, right? He don’t. This thing when I walk in and with. Walk into the room and we’re pulling the jury, he looks at me and he says, michael, we. We acquitted you in the first hour of the first day.

Because the jury was out seven days until they came in with the verdict. Jury was out seven days. Now let me tell you something. My wife and I were engaged at that point. Camille. We weren’t married. Why weren’t we married? Because I was afraid if I got convicted on this case, I was going away forever. She’s 21 years old. Am I going to ruin this girl’s life? So the jury came in on a Friday and she wanted to come to the courtroom, right? And I. Well, I had a feeling I should say that the jury was going to come in.

They didn’t want to stay out Another weekend, they were already out, you know, a week. So I told her, this jury’s not ready yet. Don’t worry about it. Stay home, you know, no problem. I didn’t want her to be there if I got convicted, because they weren’t going to let me out. They were going to take me right then and there. I knew it. So he tells me, we acquitted you, this jury guy said, on the first hour of the first day. So after it was all over, you know, we hugged and kissed all the Italian guys, you know, we.

The other guys, the eight Jews they took away at that time. I think they might have been able to stay out, some of them afterwards. But Cooper went in. This guy, Jesse Hyman, he went in, gone, right? He got 30 years, too. Jesse Hyman. I ran to the phone and I told my wife. I said, hey, my future wife, I should say. I said, listen, acquitted on all counts. The jury came in, pack up. We’re going to Vegas tomorrow and we’re going to get married. And that is May 9th. That’s the first time we got married.

And then I gave her a bigger wedding on July 27th in California. But my gosh, people, what a relief that was. It really was such a relief. But, you know, did we work together? Yes, we worked with. I had a lot of Jewish friends and a lot of Jewish partners. I really did. And we did good business together. Let me tell you the extent of what I did with this company, with Mel Cooper’s company. A couple of things. Number one, I was making a movie, Nights of the City, the movie that I met my wife. And he wanted to get involved.

He said, let me finance the movie. I said, mel, not for nothing, I don’t need your money. I said, I’ll finance it myself, but I’ll tell you what you can do. I says, let me give you a couple of million dollars and I’ll take the loan from you. Like, you know, you’re financing the movie this way. Nobody asked me where I got my money because a lot of it was gas tax money. I’ll be honest with you. So in that way, we got involved. I don’t. I don’t even think we did it. If I’m not mistaken, we were going to do it.

And then I said, heck, what did it? I put up the money anyway because I had business I can show. But the only thing that I did with this company, and just goes to show you, is they were going to finance and build a big club in Manhattan. It was a big club. It was called the Cowboy Palace, I’ll never forget. And they wanted me to invest in. I said, I don’t want to invest in a club. I said, been there, done that. Not interested. But here’s what I will do. I want to take the. The coat room.

Give me the coat room. And maybe give me the valet parking. I’ll give you a couple of grand for that. Let me run it and operate it. Very lucrative. And I was going to put somebody to work on both the valet parking and the coach. That was it. But I was giving them money for that. Not to put out on the street. That was my total involvement. That was the truth. How the government manipulated me into, you know, being the main guy, one of the main guys. Me and Rotunda for funding this thing was just crazy.

But what happened, people. I had to hire a lawyer, cost me a couple of million dollars, this case. I had to hire an investigator. And I did my work because I don’t trust anything. Anything. I don’t take anything for granted. Now, let me tell you something else very interesting that happened during this case, just prior to this, this whole mess. I was involved in a big undercover operation. When I mean involved. I was a target. Myself and Don King were the targets of this operation. You heard me talk about it before. The FBI had an undercover agent named Victor Guerrero at the time, or Victor Quintana, I should say.

His real name was Guerrero. And another guy, this guy Reggie Barrett, who they pulled out of prison because he was into professional boxing and. And he was around Muhammad Ali at one time. So he was kind of the credibility. They were investigating whether organized crime was involved in pro boxing. They came to me because they knew I had connections and so on and so forth. So they came to me. They may believe that they had big money. There were former drug dealers from many, many years ago, Colombian drug dealers. But they had no more to do with that industry.

And now they wanted to put it into boxing. They wanted to meet Don King. They wanted me to introduce him. I had these people on me for about eight months. Eight months. They were recording me. They wore a Nagra tape. We got very friendly. We played racquetball together. I flew them down to Florida for a big middleweight fight. They flew them on my plane. The FBI and this guy, the undergovernment foreman. We became very close friends during this time. But I never said enough to have them charge me with anything. And they were going to. They were going to go the distance.

I did introduce them to Don King, but I told Don, don’t say anything bad to these Guys, I know them seven months, but I’m still not 100% sure about them. I sat in a meeting with them, with Don King. We didn’t do anything that was out of the way. We told them legitimately how they can get mobbed in the business. Turns out, okay, that the FBI had to stop the investigation because Boom Boom Mancini, another friend of mine, if you remember, he killed somebody in the ring. He was a terrific fighter, lightweight. He killed somebody in the ring.

And at that point, the FBI got scared. They said, you know what? We can’t do this anymore. Because God forbid we’re involved with this. Somebody gets killed in the ring, we’re in trouble. So they killed the investigation. But during the trial, and I didn’t know I was undercover, I had no idea that this was an undercover investigation, because the guys just. They. They wrapped up and they went away, right? The two guys. Because I told him, listen, we can’t proceed anymore. They made an excuse, and that was the end of the relationship. P.S. i get indicted several months later on this Southern District case.

I get the discovery, and I see that there’s this agent. I said, oh, my God. He was an undercover agent. I never knew it. I said, they got me on tape. They call him as a witness, the FBI agent. He gets on the stand and. And they asked him questions. And my lawyer cross examines him and says to him, were you ever involved? Did Michael Francis ever do anything criminal with you during the eight months that you were with him? No, he did not. On the 83 tapes that you have of Michael Francis, did he incriminate himself in any crime at all during that time? Absolutely not.

He told the truth. I believe that his testimony helped me out tremendously. He was an FBI agent that told the absolute truth. And I’ll tell you another thing he did. And this is something why. Listen, you know, I jump on the FBI when I. When I think I need to, when I feel that they’re acting improperly, okay? And I’m give them credit when they don’t, because, look, we need our FBI. They’re not all corrupt. I’m not saying that many of them are good agents. Most of them are good agents. Sometimes they get off, like a couple of guys I can mention we don’t have to get into now, all right? My brother, during that time, tried to do drug deals with them, and he wouldn’t indict my brother.

As a matter of fact, he came to me, he said, you really got to get a hold of your brother. Something wrong there. He could have indicted him. He could have tried to flip him. He could have done anything. He didn’t do it. And he said to me afterwards, you know, we weren’t trying to hurt you. You know, maybe would have got you and your father, but we weren’t trying to hurt your brother or your family or anything like that. Really decent guy. Another thing, at that time Al Sharpton was involved. The Reverend Al. And you know what a revenue was? He was a gun for hire.

He would be. We’d pay him to do certain things. He was a gun for hire. He’s doing exactly now what he was doing back then, shaking down people for money. Now he does it through his non profit. He goes to a business. Hey, if you don’t hire more black people, you know we’re going to pick and we’re going to. And they pay him off and he’s done. Shakedown. That’s all it is. He does it legally now. He’s friends with Obama. Whatever he does illegally. He used to wear a jumpsuit, a warm up suit. Now he wears a suit and tie.

Whatever. Okay, More power to him. He turned informant at some point. He absolutely did. Because he tried to do a drug deal with them. Al Sharpton turned informant. No doubt about it, 100%. He’ll deny it. He said that he was working with the FBI to catch the nonsense. Absolute baloney. If he ever sits down with me, forget it. He can never say that. And if he did, he’d be lying. But I catch him. All right, but my point here is the FBI really helped me because he told the truth. He could have buried me. He would have told the truth either way.

But honestly, I did not, you know, say anything to incriminate myself in any criminal activity. Absolutely not. And the reason being because I knew if I wasn’t sure if somebody. I didn’t speak out of turn. My father taught me. He used to do this. He used to pick to see his microphone. He pick it up like it was the phone. He’d hold the phone and he’d say, see this, this is a cop. Don’t talk on the phone. And I never did, never got myself in trouble that way, you know, and if I didn’t know somebody, I didn’t talk out of turn.

Another thing my dad taught me, he said, michael, if you and I go out and commit a crime 30 seconds after it’s done, if you ask me about it, I’m going to say, what are you talking about? There’s no reason to talk about it ever again. Don’t Talk about it helped me a lot. My dad was a good mentor in many, many ways to me. I never got myself incriminated on any tapes, any wiretaps, any surveillance, Nothing throughout my 20 years in that life. Never, because I was very careful. So a lot of things happened relative to that trial.

But, you know, the bottom line is I was acquitted. If I would have lost that case, I think Rudy would have given me at least 50 because he was giving out heavy time. Cooper and Hyman had. They each got 30 years. Now, let me tell you another thing that happened. Jesse Hyman, who is Mel Cooper’s partner, he became an informant. He wasn’t going to do the 30 years he became an informant. He was friendly with John Riggy. You know, he was a Jersey crew boss. And I was very friendly with John Riggy loved John. We had a deal together, me and John did that.

Every window that was put into an apartment complex or a building in Manhattan, he and I got two dollars from every bill, every window, two dollar tariff we put on it. Jesse Hyman was involved in that. So when he became an informant, he became an informant. He told them about that. That was me and Riggy. So the FBI comes to me and they ask about it and I give him a 302 on it at that time. I said, well, all these talk. 302? Yeah, let me tell you a story about this 302. I said, yeah, you know, I knew Hyman and yeah, I was getting $2 at that time.

So now John Riggi gets indicted and it’s part of the window case. I’m home on parole. They come to see me at six in the morning, they pick me up. You’re going into Jersey? I think the trial was at the time, Newark. Yeah. And I said, what for? They said, there’s a trial going on and you’re going to be called as a witness. I said, a witness? I go in, it’s John Riggy’s case, and I sit down with the prosecutor. I said, what’s this all about? He said, well, you and partner, you and Riggy were partners on this window case.

You were getting $2, you were shaking people down for $2 on every window. He said, we’re going to put you on trial and we’re going to put you on the stand rather. He said, and if you lie, we’re going to indict you for perjury. Because Jesse Hyman is supporting all this in his 302. He’s going to be the major witness. I said, oh my God, I’M sitting there and I’m. I’m saying, what am I going to do? John Riggy is my friend. I’m not going to testify against him. No way. See, these are the things that people don’t tell you.

They want to tell you all the nonsense out there, but they don’t tell you this because they don’t know it. So I’m there and I said, let me see the 302. And they give me the 302. And they let me see Jesse Hyman’s 302. The FBI agent gave it to me. Now I figure out what to do. I said, okay. I told the prosecutor, I said, listen, put me on a stand. I says, but Hyman is lying. I said, what do you mean? I said, everything he said in this thing is true, except for Riggy’s part.

I said, this was all my deal. I did it all. I was getting into it because they couldn’t indict me on anything else. As part of my plea agreement. When I took the plea on the gas business, I had already done five years in prison. When I took the plea, they had to wipe out everything that was done before that. And by the way, there was no cooperation whatsoever in my plea agreement. Zero cooperation. But as part of the plea, to make it easier on the government and easier on myself, I got a 10 year sentence, $15 million restitution, 5 million in forfeitures, and there was zero cooperation.

In case anybody wanted, you could check it out, do whatever they have to do. But as part of that, they couldn’t indict me for anything prior to that time, except for murder. I had no immunity for murder, but anything prior to this indictment. They wrapped everything up into one indictment. I got my 10 years, right. So I said, yeah, I did it all. Put me on a stand. I’m ready. I’m going to tell the truth. The prosecutor got so mad at me, I’m telling you, so mad at me, said, oh, you’re going to do that? Okay, fine.

They wouldn’t put me on the stand because I wasn’t going to implicate Riggy. They sent me back home to California. Within three days, they violated my parole, threw me back in prison. I spent another three years in prison, 29 months and seven days in solitary confinement. That’s the real story of what happened there. But I wasn’t going to testify against my friend. I didn’t testify against any of my friends. Wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t put them in prison. And by the way, this whole Senate thing On the boxing that I did testify at. They subpoenaed me. I went in and I talked and I testified.

Let me tell you about these Senate hearings. They’re a dog and pony show. Nothing ever happens. Look at the hearings now that are being held. You seeing indictments, you seen people getting charged. They’re dog and pony shows. And I knew that nobody was going to get charged. Nobody’s going to anything. I told them they already knew. Everybody that I talked about was already doing life in prison. And all I told them was we were involved in the boxing business, we had relationships, Nobody went to jail, nobody got charged with a crime. And. And I know that.

Let me tell you something, people. I was fighting the government since I’m a kid with my dad. I got indicted when I was 20 years old. I knew the government schemes. I knew what to do. I knew how to work them as best as I possibly could. Did it work out great? Well, I had to do 10, almost 10 years in prison. I had a huge restitution. So, yeah, I had to pay for it. But I understood how to work these people. I went to trial five times. I had seven indictments. I understood and knew what I was doing.

Trust me, nobody ever went to prison. And that’s how I planned it and that’s how I operated it. So, you know, I went off on a little bit of a tangent. But, you know, all of this stuff was related to this case. So I want to really recommend that you read this book again. Wise Guys, Rabbis, and the FBI. It’ll give you some kind of understanding on how the FBI and the Department of Justice, you know, the U.S. attorney’s office, how they can come after people, you know, how they can make mistakes, how the Mafia and the Jews and businesses work together.

You’ll get it all in here. You can get this on Amazon, but I really recommend that you read it and I think you’ll enjoy it. So that’s it for today, my friends. How do I always leave you? Same way, never going to change. Be safe. Don’t have to emphasize it. You know how I do it at the end of every one of my videos. Be safe, be healthy. Same thing, one life to live. Get yourself in shape, do what you need to do. Longevity. They’re saying if you can live another five years, you probably can live to over a hundred and have a healthy lifestyle.

If you cooperate with yourself and really take care of your body and your mind. Be safe, be healthy. God bless each and every one of you. And I really mean that, people, you know What? Easter Sunday is a blessing for all of us. So let this whole month, this whole month, hopefully we’ll find peace in Iran. Hopefully, you know, these people that were struggling and suffering over that regime, it’ll be over. Hopefully we can get some peace throughout the world. The people in Ukraine, the people in Gaza, people here in the United States that are struggling.

You know, this is a wonderful season of the year and I really hope that God was really extend his blessings on all of us here and all of those of you that are struggling and people, I really mean that. I say that sincerely because that’s what we want to see. We want to see peace on earth, basically. So God bless each and every one of you, your friends, your families, your neighborhoods and your communities. And yes, God bless America. I’ll see you next time. Stay tuned. If I haven’t invited you already, I’m inviting you now to our school platform, our membership platform.

You know, you’re going to really benefit from it. I’m telling you, you’re going to get a lot of me. I put courses in there on business, on negotiation, on leadership. We do zoom calls a couple of times a month. We even do Bible studies. I hold Q&As for all of you that are interested in the mob life or anything else that you think I might be able to help you with. But more than that, it’s a community of like minded people that are really benefiting one another. People are doing business with one another, they’re becoming friends.

It’s just a great platform. It’s something that we’re missing, I believe, this sense of community, we’re missing it in this country. We’re trying to bring it back. So I invite you and I got to tell you this, this is an offer you really shouldn’t refuse. Go on these platforms, they’re going to charge you an arm and a leg. We charge 10 bucks a month and really that’s just to maintain everything that we do there. We want you in there, we want you to enjoy it and we want you to feel that sense of community again. So if you want more of me, go to michaelfrancise.com family an offer you shouldn’t refuse.

Sa.
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