Former Colombo crime family captain, author and speaker Michael Franzese says God now directs a life once ruled by a Mafia boss and blood oath.
“Who you are accountable to in life is going to direct the path that your life goes down,” Franzese told pastor and evangelist Greg Laurie in an interview excerpt posted Aug. 29.
The 27-minute upload pulls from a longer conversation first released April 12, 2025, on GREG LAURIE: A NEW BEGINNING. Franzese spoke candidly about the loyalties that drew him into organized crime, the damage he saw at home and the faith that changed whom he serves.
As a boy, Franzese admired his father, Sonny, whom he described as the Colombo family’s underboss. He remembered his father rolling up to his baseball games in a huge black Cadillac with five or six men in tow — enough muscle, Franzese joked, that the umpire never called strike three when he was at bat.
Franzese said he dreamed of playing center field for the New York Yankees, while his father hoped he would become a doctor. After his father went to federal prison, Franzese left Hofstra University and entered the organized-crime world at 21, eventually taking a blood oath during a 1975 initiation.
By Franzese’s account, the cost showed up all over his family. Prison kept his parents apart for decades, his siblings struggled and he began asking whether he could bring Camille Garcia, the woman he loved and later married, into the same wreckage.
Camille also introduced him to the Lord. In an earlier interview with CBN, the couple explained how her Christian example, her mother’s prayers and a Bible that a guard gave Franzese in prison deepened his faith and helped turn his life in a new direction.
“When I was on the street, I was accountable to my boss, to my oath. I was a criminal. Now I’m accountable to my God first, to my wife, my children, people that rely on me,” Franzese said, explaining that those loyalties keep his paths straighter.
Laurie asked what Franzese would say to young people drawn toward gangs after noting how mob movies can glamorize crime. Franzese answered that companions and accountability help decide where a life goes.
“Remember this: In this world, you are in this life who you hang out with,” he said, warning that the wrong crowd can influence a person and pull him in the wrong direction.
Laurie connected that warning to Psalm 1 and Proverbs 3, pointing listeners toward the blessing of refusing ungodly counsel and trusting the Lord to direct their paths. Franzese’s past remained part of the conversation, but his highest allegiance had changed.
Movieguide® previously explored that transformation in its review of the documentary GOD THE FATHER. The review praised the movie’s strong message of repentance, Scripture and redemption through Jesus Christ while cautioning families about graphic mob violence and crucifixion imagery.
“No one is beyond the reach of God,” Laurie concluded. Franzese’s story makes that hope concrete: a man once bound by an oath of fear now urges the next generation to choose its loyalties — and its path — with far greater care.
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