John "Sonny" Franzese Sr. Colombo Family Underboss FBI Files & Congressional Material 

John "Sonny" Franzese Sr. Colombo Family Underboss FBI Files & Congressional Material 

This collection contains 616 pages of material.

John "Sonny" Franzese Sr. (1917-2020) was the former underboss of the Colombo crime family, from 1963, until he was sentenced to 50 years in prison for bank robbery charges in 1967. Franzese operated out of New York City and New Jersey and was involved in racketeering, fraud, and loansharking. He was paroled in 1978 and became Colombo family underboss again in 2005, until he was convicted of extortion in 2011. During his extortion trial, his son John Franzese Jr. testified against his father. Franzese was released from prison on June 23, 2017, at the age of 100. At the time he was the oldest inmate in the Federal prison system and the only centenarian in federal custody. Franzese died on February 24, 2020, at the age of 103.

In the 1930s Franzese worked for Profaci crime family boss Joseph Profaci. The Profaci family was later renamed the Colombo family. In 1942 he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He was soon discharged under the classification, "psychoneurotic with pronounced homicidal tendencies." He became a made man in 1950. In the early 1960's he was appointed Colombo Family underboss by its boss Joseph Colombo.

In 1966 Franzese was arrested for the 1964 murder of Ernest Rupolo. It is believed that Vito Genovese ordered Franzese to kill Rupolo, a Genovese crime family member who became an informant.  Rupolo was shot and stabbed several times before his feet were attached to two concrete blocks and his hands tied before being dumped into Jamaica Bay. During his trial prosecutors presented records that suggested that Franzese had killed between 30 and 50 people.

In 1967 Franzese was convicted for his role in four bank robberies and was sentenced to 50 years in prison. In 1978 he was released on parole but returned to prison on parole violations six times.

In 2011 Franzese at age of 93 was convicted on charges of extorting two Manhattan strip clubs, running a loan shark operation, and extorting a pizzeria on Long Island. Key to his prosecution was testimony given by his son John Jr. He was released from the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Massachusetts, on June 23, 2017, at the age of 100.


FBI Files

420 pages of FBI files encompassing John "Sonny" Franzese Sr., his nephew Carmine “Tutti” Franzese and the broad web of the Colombo Family. Files date from 1960 t0 1980, mostly from the first half of 1970's. They cover the criminal history of the Franzeses. Composed largely of summaries from other FBI files, physical surveillance reports and synopses of information obtained from informants.


Congressional Hearings

124 pages of excerpts of testimony and transcripts of questioning of witnesses from three Senate hearings: Impact of Crime on Small Business Senate Hearing (1968); Corruption in Professional Boxing (1993) and Russian Organized Crime in the United States (1996). Witnesses include: Michael Metzger, assistant district attorney of New York; Nathan Sackin an owner of dry cleaning establishments in New York City who became indebted to John Franzese; A cooperating government witness whose identity was hidden and was only referred to as "Bobby" and John Franzese's son Michael.
 

Records and Briefs of the United States Supreme Court - Franzese v. The United States (1967)

The United States Supreme Court's reporting on the appeal of John "Sonny" Franzese Sr's 1967 conviction.