Michael Franzese () (né Grillo; born May 27, 1951) is an American former mobster who was a caporegime in the Colombo crime family, and son of former underboss Sonny Franzese. Franzese was enrolled in a pre-med program at Hofstra University, but dropped out to make money for his family after his father was sentenced to 50 years in prison for bank robbery in 1967. He eventually helped implement a scheme to defraud the federal government out of gasoline taxes in the early 1980s. By the age of 35, in 1986, Fortune Magazine listed Franzese as number 18 on its list of the "Fifty Most Wealthy and Powerful Mafia Bosses". Franzese had claimed that at the height of his career, he generated up to $8 million per week. In 1986, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison on conspiracy charges, released in 1989, rearrested in 1991 for a parole violation, and ultimately released in 1994. Soon after, he retired to California and is now a motivational speaker and writer. Early life Franzese was born on May 27, 1951, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, to John "Sonny" Franzese, a Colombo crime family underboss, and Cristina Capobianco-Franzese, although Michael had initially questioned his actual biological father. Franzese had initially believed that he had been adopted by John after his mother divorced Frank Grillo, whom Franzese thought to be his biological father. Michael says he had gone by the name "Michael Grillo" until he was 18 years old. However, it was later discovered that John, already married with three children, had gotten the 16-year-old Capobianco, a cigarette girl at the Stork Club in Manhattan, pregnant with Michael, so Capobianco married Grillo to avoid having a scandal surrounding having a child out of wedlock. After the mob allowed John to divorce his first wife, Grillo disappeared, and he married Capobianco. Franzese later moved to Long Island. After in 1969; his father originally did not want him to be involved in organized crime. However, in 1971, Franzese decided to drop out of college to help his family earn money when his father was sentenced to 50 years in prison for bank robbery in 1967. Franzese became acquainted with his father's friends such as Joseph Colombo, and according to Franzese, later became inducted as a made man on Halloween night 1975 under acting boss Tommy DiBella. As part of the ceremony Franzese took