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I remember there was uh one particular classroom Mrs Kramer allowed this girl to do current event articles on my
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father it was really bad and my mother went crazy and she went and confronted the teacher
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um I don't think she ever really liked me Mrs Kramer I surmised to this day that she didn't
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like me because of my family this is John Francis Jr he was born in 1960 on the North Shore of Long Island
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his father John Sonny Francis was the longtime underboss for the Colombo crime family one of the so-called five
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families of New York there's never been a guy like Sunny an FBI agent once said there'll never be
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another guy like Sunny The Last of a Dying Breed what type of father was your father like
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what type of father was he I'm glad you asked because as a daddy was a really great guy I know he loved me playing
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baseball and I was I remember this because it was really important to me but my first year of baseball this is
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the one of the best times of my dad I remember I was really bad my first year and I made the last out of the last play
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and I hit the ball and I was so happy I hit it I Ran So Fast the first base but I I got called
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out because I was out and I was all depressed like I thought I'd get my one hit and I thought my dad would be really
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upset because you know I always thought he wanted me to be this great player and
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I'm sure he did but when I was walking back with my head down he said hey son don't feel bad he
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says you got better all year long he says is she the way you hustled on that that's all that matter you made contact
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that's a start next year we'll we'll make more contact and I was surprised and these days I often wonder if it was
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me so much that I wanted to please him I thought he wanted different things for me than he actually did
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John's father Sonny Francis was born in Naples in 1917 and grew up in New York City
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Sonny's father Carmine ran a bakery in Brooklyn where reportedly sometimes he put people he didn't like into the oven
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Sonny was arrested for the first time when he was 21 for assault and he was discharged from the Army during World
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War II because of quote homicidal tendencies then according to Life Magazine he fought and murdered his way into the
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mafia's front rank he hung out with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr that the Copacabana nightclub
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in 1967 he went to prison for bank robbery and has been in and out ever since he's never been convicted of murder but
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he once said I killed a lot of guys you're not talking about four five six ten in that same conversation reported by
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prosecutors he explained how best to dispose of a dead body it involved the microwave a kiddie pool and patience
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because he lived on Long Island people said Sonny francese brought the mafia to the suburbs
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[Music] what was life like around the house well my dad would leave after we left
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for school and he'd always be home for dinner um and he'd always take us to work
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when he had off so we generally would go into Manhattan he had offices there generally music business and
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entertainment field is what I thought was his job Sonny francese did a lot of business
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with a lot of different people sometimes in the music business also the film industry he helped fund The Texas
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Chainsaw Massacre and deep throat he had a financial interest in various nightclubs restaurants and strip clubs
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but assistant U.S attorney Christina posa once said he's never held an honest job for a day in his life and is largely
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responsible for the glamorization of the mafia over the past Century I remember kids would always say from like
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fourth grade on that I was the richest kid in school um we never needed for anything
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if he needed one baseball glove he'd get three when he was a kid he got a dirt bike and
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when he got older he got a new car every year sometimes more than one a year John told us he spent about eighteen
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thousand dollars a month on clothing except for one month when he spent Thirty one thousand
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he never left the house with less than fifteen hundred cash in his pocket this was the late 70s
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did you ever watch The Sopranos of The Godfather yes what do you think about the way that
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organized crime the mafia is portrayed in those shows well I think they The Godfather did an
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accurate job of little things people don't notice but uh but The Sopranos did at times what they
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over I it was phenomenal I love The Sopranos but there are some things that are silly
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I don't remember exactly what but it was just too over the top sometimes uh like
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Tony keeping his money in his house that doesn't happen uh if they keep some money but not those kind of amounts
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money because you know you're going to get arrested someday you know or they may come and raid you growing up John
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knew his family had money he knew his father was somebody that people talked about but he didn't really know what was
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going on until his older brother sat him down and told him the honest truth about
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the family business and I mean he explained everything about captains the boss the the underboss the
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conciliary and the I'm just kidding Aaron it's like it's like the minute he said that
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I felt like I belonged like all these years I have been fi like confused about something and
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when he said that I liked it [Music] and from that moment on I was and he was like talking like this is our life
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so I assumed okay this is my life too I guess John started hanging around with his
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brother and father and other Colombo crime family Associates he called them all uncles
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and he felt grown up he remembers that people would get out of their way they could get into any
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club they wanted then he started to actually do some work for his father Sunny had too much FBI
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surveillance on him but John was still young he could move around more freely he would deliver messages
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he says often they were in code and he didn't know what they meant he remembers that sometimes the message
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would be about vegetables whether something was a good vegetable or not where it was grown
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by the time he was 18 John says he was working as a Bag Man collecting and dropping off bags of extortion money
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I I became a a bit of a bully I took advantage of things because I could it was more like you know it it just
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happened and I played the part and I I realized well around that time I remember the one thing that I uh that my
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dad actually asked me he said I'll give you anything you want on this Earth and one thing I'm going to tell you is
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never embarrass us don't ever embarrass us and I I remember those words [Music] on June 4th 2008 Sunny francies along
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with fellow Colombo family members was indicted on charges of racketeering conspiracy robbery extortion narcotics
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trafficking and Loan sharking it obviously wasn't Sonny's first time in court not by a long shot
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what made this trial different was the presence of one FBI informant in particular
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an informant who'd worn a wire for eight months and could talk to Sunny the way few
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others could I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal [Music] I'm a rat I mean I I am but there's a
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little difference uh doesn't make it better but there's a difference I didn't do it to get out of
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trouble um I did it because our way of life is a bad way of life I felt I owed something
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John's testimony against his father was big news headlines like Mafia Boss faces prison
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after sun breaks Code of Silence John was repeatedly called a turncoat and a rat
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one New York Post headline read rat's my boy what is that like to tell to be telling
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your story you know to the outside world you know a lot has been said about you by the media right A
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lot of people have said talked about you but what is it like for you to be talking about your experiences on the
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other side well this is odd for me he's been through a lot he first went into rehab when he was 25.
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he says he would disappear and then show up at his family's house a mass now my mom would let me in the house but you
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don't want to go in the house with my mother while I'm stoned and high she was a terror you'd rather be around my
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father my mom wasn't afraid of anything she'll blow your high and you're drunk it was
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terrible he stole money from his family says he once stole his sister's car like
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something would happen I'd get arrested I'd get sick I I'd come home to my mother's house and
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then I'd start a period of let's say a seemingly reconstruction only to drink or get high again
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I contracted HIV and diagnosed in 1990 I know I got it in there before 86 because
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I stopped using needles in 1986 and so for 11 years of my life and I'm going to this 12-step program I can mention a
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name I'm not supposed to it's Anonymous but I could say 12-step okay so I'm going in this 12-step program from 1985
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till 2001 and I'm drinking and getting high the whole time through it change when he met a guy at a meeting
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his name was Daryl he was never afraid to tell me you are so sick he'd tell me I was sick in the head that I don't even
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understand anything and why are you dressing like your 41 year old grown man you're dressing like a rap star at 41
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years old and he'd just say all this stuff and somehow all of this came bearing down on me
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applied for Section 8 Housing and for disability and he stayed sober then in 2004 he got a call from the FBI
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he says it's common for FBI agents to call members of mob families and try and get them to flip just part of the
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business but on this day maybe because his life was different John listened the FBI agent asked John if he'd been
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willing to gather information about his father sunny I said okay [Music] John Francis was approached by the FBI
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in 2004 to provide information about his father and for much of 2005 he wore a wire and
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recorded any conversations he could what what was the evidence that you provided oh there was like 400 hours of
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tape in a March 10 2005 recording Sunny school did John for failing to collect an overdue extortion payment he said I
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would have grabbed Carmine and told him look you rap bastard go out there and get the money and bring it here and if
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he doesn't give it to you leave him on the floor John also recorded conversations between
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sunny and other Colombo family Associates about extorting strip clubs and a pizza place
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during one someone says you can't go in and bang their brains out you got to make yourself known you got to be nice
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and easy John also got his father on tape admitting he was the underboss of the Colombo family
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during Sunny's 2010 trial John explained why he became an FBI informant he said I
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wanted to change my life they would provide a means for me to change my life Sunny's defense attorney suggested that
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the reason John informed on his elderly father was because the government was paying for his HIV treatments
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he did it for the money the lawyer said there's no other reason John's brother called it a betrayal and
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told reporters the family is taking it very hard Sonny francese was sentenced to eight
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years in prison he was 93. John's testimony also led to the conviction of three other Colombo family
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Associates did you think to yourself um what will my father think of me I know my father loves me
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that's just the kind of guy he is he may hate what I did but he just takes everything in stride
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he's a my sister Lorraine once said to me when I was a kid that my father our father has no
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cognitive dissonance he was a gangster and he thought like a gangster he never left that mentality
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[Music] you want to know I uh I know this may sound crazy me and my dad had a an understanding
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that no matter what we don't let anyone kill anyone in our family I do know that there probably are people
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who would kill me and when you entered witness protection tell me the first steps and where you
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went and who you became hey this is kind of important to me because the government
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all through this they weren't perfect but I always knew where I stood clearly I know that that was never the case with
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my mom or my dad the United States government was very fair um it's a very weird thing they throw your
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phone in a sink what you standing there and you watch it explode or whatever it jumps around all
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your pictures and everything that's difficult but they do prepare you there's a psychological evaluation you go through
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um and then you go to a I went they took me to a a place uh and I stood there about
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four months you stay by yourself you travel with a a travel ID different name it's not your uh station
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or your permanent it's transitory and they give it to you on the plane and then they take it back from you when
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you get in the darn Hotel so now it's pretty scary because I'm staying in a hotel with no ID and
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and they did make constellations for me to uh they said I I asked them for I think I asked them for two things that I
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didn't lose my disability or Medicare and that I could go to a a 12-step meetings any time I needed to
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Oklahoma City and initially twelve hundred dollars a month to live on then he says he was sent to Dallas and
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then sent to South Carolina he was there for two years but he got scared he told a friend too
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much and so they moved him again to Austin and then in 2008 he was sent to Indianapolis
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the government asked you to keep your same story just don't say the locations or be
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specific so it was very easy for it to fill right in with uh with him from the yeah I'm
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from New York sometimes people ask it is your dad home is your mother home why don't you speak to them and
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so I just said I uh my family's not happy with me from prison at 100 years old there are some newspaper stories about
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his release and on one of them someone posted a comment saying they knew John and that he was living in Indianapolis
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John says he was told he needed to relocate immediately but he said no he was sick of moving around
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he left the witness protection program he's been out for a year now have you um have you spoken to your father
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no I haven't do you think you will before he dies well it's a funny thing I tried
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um when I was in the uh the program I tried to write a letter and I think the program said at first
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they allowed me to send letters to my mama and dad and I did and he never spoke to me well my mom
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said he got the letter and he said he loves you maybe she was just saying that um I don't know I haven't gotten any
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response uh from him do you do you have a relationship with your brother with your other siblings
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I think within our family and uh the neighborhood people we know would kind of shun them if they knew
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they were talking to me or close with me it's hard for people to forgive or well
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who the hell am I thinking I would have never forgiven me either so I understand how they think
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and that's just the way it is and you know my my brothers and sisters have kids and their kids come from those
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neighborhoods and have a family you know our cousins and the people they know it it might bring
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some unwanted difficulties to them but I think personally my brothers and sisters
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love me I'm sure we would get along well if we were together whether they said it or not
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[Music] we talked with him in his home in Indianapolis his life now is different from how he
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grew up no fancy cars no expensive clothes he lives in a small apartment with his cat
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it's funny to think about the life that you've had and then think about you here in this
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little house in Indianapolis tucked away are you scared sometimes honestly yeah yeah every now and then that gets to me
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when we were finishing up this episode I sent John a text message I asked what if anything the witness
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protection program told him when he decided to leave here's what he replied three days after I signed out the
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assistant U.S district attorney called me and asked if I wanted to go back in the program
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she also said if I had any problems to please call her that they would always be as helpful to
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me as they could but to let them know if anything didn't seem right they also implied that it would not be a
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good idea to go to New York that there's a very good chance that people are still looking to hurt me
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John doesn't seem to want to go back to New York and to his old life anyway he likes Indianapolis he named his cat
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Indy but he still talks and worries about what people might think of him and what
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he did I I think it's hard to talk about I think if people see my life if people
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see my life they might understand better uh look I I think it's really good to set a
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goal go out and become successful I like that I don't know if that's this is better for me I'm built like
00:22:30
this better I fit better here [Music] criminal is created by Lauren Spore and me our senior producer is Nadia Wilson
00:22:50
audio mix by Michael Rayfield and Rob Byers Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of
00:22:58
Criminal you can see them at this criminal.com where on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show
00:23:05
criminals recorded in the studios of North Carolina public radio wunc we're a proud member of radiotopia from PRX a
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collection of the best podcasts around we'll be back next year I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
00:23:26
[Music] foreign [Music]