This is a pretty amazing story. Mob boss John “Sonny” Franzese is the real deal. He’s one of the few original old school mafia bosses still breathing. He’s 93-years old and used to hang out with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. at the Copacabana nightclub. His first arrest was in 1938.

A federal judge sentenced Franzese to 8-years in prison for extorting Manhattan strip clubs. The judge said it was difficult to send such an elderly man to prison, but wanted to send a message that advanced age won’t absolve someone of their crimes. Franzese is in a wheelchair and can barely speak.

It would be easy to get sentimental and want to let the old man off the hook. He’s just an old gangster in the final years of his life. But when you really look at his life you realize he deserves to die in prison. He’s murdered dozens of people throughout his life and ordered the murder of dozens more. He’a also a convicted rapist and bank robber.

Franzese’s first arrest, for assault, came in 1938. Prosecutors say he was kicked out of the Army four years later after displaying “homicidal tendencies.”

In 1947, court papers say, he raped a waitress in a garage. In 1966, he beat a murder charge accusing him of killing a rival and dumping the body — cement blocks chained to the feet — into a bay.

Franzese was convicted in 1967 in a bank robbery, sent to prison and paroled in the late 1970s. Though never convicted of another crime, authorities say he rose to second in command of the Colombos, one of New York’s five Italian crime families.

the government said Franzese’s true legacy was something more akin to “Goodfellas.”

The main reason Franzese dodged arrest in other murders is that he became good at making bodies disappear, the papers said. Investigators caught him on tape in 2006 describing his favorite recipe for that: Dismember victim in kiddie pool. Cook body parts in microwave. Stuff parts in garbage disposal. Be patient.

“Today, you can’t have a body no more,” the latest court papers quote him saying. “It’s better to take that half an hour, an hour, to get rid of the body than it is just to leave the body in the street.”

He may look like your grandpa, but he’s an evil guy. Fascinating for sure, but nevertheless evil.

From WNBC:

The entire hierarchy of the Gambino organized crime family is being rounded up Thursday morning in what law enforcement officials are calling the biggest mafia bust in more than 20 years, WNBC.com has learned.

Investigators said powerful capos and dozens of its members and associates are being arrested Thursday morning by teams of federal, state and local investigators.

The Gambino family was once headed by John Gotti until his incarceration and subsequent death behind bars from cancer.

Gotti’s reckless disregard for the old time rules and rituals that made the mafia such a successful organization, really spelled the beginning of the end for the American mafia.

Whatever “honor” these thugs once had is long gone. Murder is no longer a last resort, but instead a first option. They routinely deal drugs which would have been unthinkable just a couple of decades ago due to the extremely stiff prison sentences it can bring.

Probably the biggest problem the Gambino family and the mafia in general has faced in recent years is the failure of its members to honor the “code of silence.” Meaning you don’t rat other people out just to save your own skin.

John Gotti was convicted in 1992 on federal racketeering charges. It was during that trial that Gotti’s close associate Sammy “the Bull” Gravano became a witness for the government.

Even though Gravano had personally committed some 20+ murders on behalf of the family, he received full immunity from the government. Over the last decade, law enforcement has been able to turn the screws on mafia members and systematically dismantle the organization.

This latest string of arrests of the top leadership (such as it is) for murder, racketeering, and conspiracy means that the few people left of any consequence are probably looking at life sentences in a super max prison.

-Chris Jones