John "Sonny" Franzese Sr. (; February 6, 1917 – February 24, 2020) was an Italian-born American mobster who was a longtime member and former underboss of the Colombo crime family. Franzese's career in organized crime began in the 1930s and spanned over eight decades. He served as underboss of the Colombo family from 1963 until he was sentenced to 50 years in prison for orchestrating a string of bank robberies across the country in 1967. He was paroled in 1978, but was re-jailed at least six times on parole violations throughout the decades that followed. He became Colombo family underboss again in 2005, until he was convicted of extortion in 2011, and sentenced to eight years in prison. His son John Franzese Jr. had testified against him, becoming the first son of a New York mobster to turn state's evidence and testify against his father. At the time of his release on June 23, 2017, at the age of 100, he was the oldest federal inmate in the United States and the only centenarian in federal custody. He died in a New York City hospital on February 24, 2020, at the age of 103. Rise in the Colombo crime family Franzese was born in Naples, Italy, to Carmine Franzese and Maria Corvola on February 6, 1917, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. His parents had already immigrated to the United States at the time of his birth, and were back in Italy for a visit. After six months, his family returned with Franzese to their home in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where his father ran a bakery. His mother had given him the nickname "Sonny" at a young age. In the late 1930s, Franzese worked under Joseph Profaci, boss of the Profaci crime family (later named the Colombo crime family). His first arrest came in 1938, for assault. In 1942, in the midst of World War II, he was drafted to the United States Army, but was discharged later that year classified as "psychoneurotic with pronounced homicidal tendencies". Court papers accused him of committing rape against a waitress in 1947, but he was never arrested in relation to the crime. Franzese operated out of New York City and New Jersey and was involved in racketeering, fraud, and loansharking. He was also a regular at the Copacabana and met such stars as Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. on a frequent basis.