Michael Fran-zese, the so-called "Yuppie Mobster" whose ingenuity and smooth talk earned him millions of dollars, was sentenced to a four-year prison term Friday for violating his federal probation.
Prosecutors charged that he had not lived up to the original probation agreement and had been involved in a new series of bank and real estate scams."I want to apologize to the court for this proceeding. I do take the responsibility for what I did," Franzese said.
Franzese, 40, a former Colombo crime family chieftain, refined a variety of federal and state tax dodges in the early 1980s that helped him and his Mafia associates cheat authorities out of millions of dollars when selling oil and gasoline in the greater New York area.
In 1986, he pleaded guilty to federal racketeering and conspiracy charges.
As part of the plea, he agreed to pay the government $14.7 million in fines, forfeitures and restitutions and accept a five-year prison term.
A second count, conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, was suspended, and he was given five years probation.