by Angelo Santino » Thu May 31, 2018 4:31 pm
On the surface no, both men are who they say they are. But they can stretch the truth. In the case of Franzese, rather than label him a former ranking member, they can call him "a former mob boss." With Pistone, Sonny Black went from capo in his first book to acting boss in his second, and the whole "dramatic inner conflict" we see by Johnny Depp feeling more and more loyal to Lefty is all but absent in book 1 and in fact quite the opposite. But by the 2000's he's writing that had he been sent to hit so and so, "fuck it, he would have." He specifically says that and I can't imagine him testifying that at the McClellan Committee during the early years of his post-undercover career.
Again, read Quitting the Mob published in the late 80's or early 90's, Franzese is simply loyal to his father and was quite intelligent, perhaps too intelligent for the mob in true Shakespearian form. There's no mention of him being groomed to be the specific underboss to Alphonse after he (eventually?) became boss. It's an example of the truth being stretched and apart from this forum, the average person could care less.
Do I think Franzese made millions in a week himself personally- no fucking way in hell. That's 25 million a month, 300 million a year... in 1980. Of course the entire scam might have generated up to 8 million annually, but like the Vegas skim, proceeds tend to be cut up so much that when we as outsiders see the amount we scratch our heads and say: "that's it!?!?" We look at events after they occurred and conclude someone's going to die in federal prison over what amounted to a 1500-2000 a month scam.
On the surface no, both men are who they say they are. But they can stretch the truth. In the case of Franzese, rather than label him a former ranking member, they can call him "a former mob boss." With Pistone, Sonny Black went from capo in his first book to acting boss in his second, and the whole "dramatic inner conflict" we see by Johnny Depp feeling more and more loyal to Lefty is all but absent in book 1 and in fact quite the opposite. But by the 2000's he's writing that had he been sent to hit so and so, "fuck it, he would have." He specifically says that and I can't imagine him testifying that at the McClellan Committee during the early years of his post-undercover career.
Again, read Quitting the Mob published in the late 80's or early 90's, Franzese is simply loyal to his father and was quite intelligent, perhaps too intelligent for the mob in true Shakespearian form. There's no mention of him being groomed to be the specific underboss to Alphonse after he (eventually?) became boss. It's an example of the truth being stretched and apart from this forum, the average person could care less.
Do I think Franzese made millions in a week himself personally- no fucking way in hell. That's 25 million a month, 300 million a year... in 1980. Of course the entire scam might have generated up to 8 million annually, but like the Vegas skim, proceeds tend to be cut up so much that when we as outsiders see the amount we scratch our heads and say: "that's it!?!?" We look at events after they occurred and conclude someone's going to die in federal prison over what amounted to a 1500-2000 a month scam.