Colombo underboss convicted in racketeering case

A Brooklyn federal court jury Wednesday returned a racketeering conviction against John "Sonny" Franzese, the 93-year-old reputed underboss of the Colombo crime family.

Franzese, one of Long Island's most notorious gangsters in his heyday, was charged with involvement in loan-sharking and strip-club extortions in a trial that turned into a family drama with his son, ex-cocaine addict John Franzese Jr., wearing a wire and testifying against him.

After the verdict, Sonny Franzese - who has spent much of the past 50 years in prison - showed little emotion. When U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan immediately revoked his bail, he pushed himself up from the wheelchair he occupied for most of the trial and hobbled off with marshals with the help of a cane after hugs and kisses on both cheeks from co-defendants and family.

"Obviously, it's devastating. This is a death sentence behind bars," said stepson Michael Franzese, a reformed mobster and Christian motivational speaker who condemned his brother John for betraying their father. "It's very bad, especially given the way it came down with my brother. It crushed my father."

Even the elder Franzese's estranged wife, Cristina Capobianco Franzese, who urged her husband to plead guilty and spare her son from testifying, was sympathetic to a nonagenarian with a pacemaker heading to prison.

"I feel that no 93-year-old man should be in jail," she said. "But if anybody can do it, Sonny can. Everybody loves him there. He's never had a problem. He can do that time standing on his head."

The three-week-long trial featured tapes on which Franzese, formerly of Roslyn, discussed how to fake threats from other crime families so that businesses would seek help from his Colombo crew, and at one point advised his son John on how to collect debts: "[If] he don't give it to you, leave him on the floor."

Franzese faces up to 20 years when he is sentenced for racketeering, five counts of loan-sharking and two counts of extortion. Jurors found him guilty of extortion of the Hustler and Penthouse strip clubs in Manhattan, but found that prosecutors did not prove his involvement in a shakedown of the Cujini Due Pizzeria in Albertson.

Co-defendant Joseph DiGorga, 70, of Oceanside, a strip club operator, was convicted of racketeering, three counts of extortion and one count of loan-sharking. Christopher Curanovic, 29, was convicted of racketeering, robbery, use of a firearm, loan-sharking and extortion. John Capolino, 42, was convicted of loan-sharking. No sentencing date has been set.