Few crews in the history of Cosa Nostra were ever as large or diversified in their activities as the “regime” headed by a tough Joseph Profaci Family member named John (Sonny) Franzese.
Operating from the Greenpoint and Williamsburg sections of North Brooklyn, by the mid-1950s, Sonny Franzese had become a powerful figure within New York’s underworld.
Within a few years after getting “made,” Franzese was elevated to a “capo di decina” status within the Profaci Family and quickly expanded his influence by adding more men as crew “associates” drawn primarily from the Brooklyn and Queens sections of the city.
He and his men then began aggressively taking over various street rackets as well as infiltrating legitimate businesses throughout the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.
By the late-1950s and early-1960s, Sonny and a dozen or so key soldiers and associates had relocated further east into Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island with their wives and families.
Now viewed as “country squires,” they quickly assimilated into suburbia and continued doing what they did best.
Within a few years’ time, what became notoriously known as the “Franzese Regime” or “Sonny Franzese Family” was deeply enmeshed within Long Island’s economy.
Continue reading for the rest of this brief history of the Franzese regime and view the Franzese regime leadership chart.
