Mafioso, 103, laid to rest in Brooklyn
A mobster regarded as one of the last giants of the mafia era has been buried on Long Island after a funeral filled with delicate allusions to his long career of extortion, murder and lengthy spells in prison.
Sonny Franzese, who was second in command in the Colombo crime family, was known as a ruthless operator. He amassed great wealth and held parties for Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr while publicly identifying himself only as the owner of a dry cleaners.
He was also known as one of the last mobsters to adhere to the omerta, the mafia vow of silence, serving decades in prison while apparently refusing to strike a deal with the FBI.
In his final prison term, which began after one of his own sons testified against him, he turned 100 and became the oldest inmate in the federal prison system. He was released in 2017 and died just over a week ago, aged 103.
Monsignor David Cassato, who officiated at his funeral at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, told mourners that Franzese referred to his jail stints as being ‘‘away at college’’. Not long after that, ‘‘lo and behold, he went away to school again!’’ the monsignor said.
He also recalled Franzese quoting Benjamin Franklin’s aphorism that nothing was certain except death and taxes, though the mobster had also advised him that ‘‘if you’re smart ... you can avoid some of those taxes’’.
Franzese was born in 1917, the nineteenth child of Italian immigrants to Brooklyn. He was drafted into the US army in 1942, only to be discharged as a ‘‘psychoneurotic with pronounced homicidal tendencies.’’ He would later say that this diagnosis was based on his eagerness for combat duty where he could kill enemy soldiers.
Back in Brooklyn, his abilities as a street brawler caught the eye of a mafia family that inducted him and promoted him quickly through its ranks.
The government accused him of involvement in as many as 50 murders and in 2006 Franzese assured an informant wearing a wire that: ‘‘I killed a lot of guys’’.
Though he officially denied killing anyone and would not acknowledge the existence of the omerta, he spoke of not cooperating because of ‘‘my principle’’ and was said to have looked over a lengthy charge sheet against him with a chuckling familiarity, like a man looking at his old school year book.
– The Times