"For 23 years I've been serving godfathers, but for the rest of my life, I'm serving Father God," says Tom Papania.

The godfathers once ruling Papania's life belonged to the New York Gambino crime family. As a debt collector, Papania paid visits to those owing the Gambinos money and left them visualizing their funeral, if payments slacked.

(if this were true, why does NO ONE recall Tom? even at http://ganglandnews.com ?, in fact, if he was so "feared" EVERYONE, including the FBI would have known this and it would have been "on the street"!)

 But Papania's strong-arm modus operandi couldn't free him from the childhood beatings and rejection from his own father, who didn't know how to show him love and who held a Papania family secret embedded deeper in the Mafia than Papania could ever descend.

"There was a knock on the door, and my father opened it," says Papania remembering his adolescent years, "and there were three men standing there."

The three elderly Italian men hung out at a storefront that Papania and two friends had robbed three times. The men warned him face-to-face not to try robbing them again, because the only reason they had allowed him to live was out of respect to his grandfather. When the men left, Papania got the worst beating ever from his father.

"I actually began hating my father because I wanted him to love me so desperately," he says.

 Since his father, wanting nothing to do with the mob, wouldn't reveal what the men knew about Papania's grandfather, Papania went straight to the men for answers. Joe "The Boss" Mazzaria, Papania's maternal grandfather, had been instrumental in actually bringing the La Cosa Nostra to America in the early 1900s. He became one of the first most powerful, wealthy, and violent mob bosses. To get back at his father, Papania joined the Gambino family.

[ The fact is, Tom would have never been approached by the Gambino, "Masseria" was NOT a Gambino, his family became the Genovese Family AFTER his death http://www.ganglandnews.com/genovese.htm  ]

"I would actually enjoy doing this because I used to fantasize that this was my father, and I was hurting him," says Papania about roughing up people for the Gambinos.

While Papania earned a reputation of no nonsense and no mercy, his mother faithfully prayed for him, but his father disowned him. A prison conviction on two counts of attempted murder still didn't dissuade Papania from returning to his old crime boss, after he served time behind bars. The mob rewarded Papania with easy money and businesses for keeping his mouth shut in prison.

[another lie, Tom was arrested for Burglery and Grand Larceny while in the Air Force]

"I don't think God was ever on my mind," he says. "It was just money. Money was my God and power."

A move to Atlanta made Papania even more successful as an owner of restaurants and nightclubs. But one morning as he surveyed his wealth, he felt the voice of God telling him he was headed in the opposite direction of heaven. Trembling, he unleashed his anger at God and decided to kill himself. But before he could pull the trigger, the phone rang. An Italian customer from one of Papania's restaurants invited him to church and Sunday dinner.

[what occurred was that Tom was Fired from his position as Body Guard for a Drug Dealer named Coppola. Coppola stopped paying rent on his Tom's house and he was broke, plus the Feds were coming down with an indictment for Pornography, Cocaine Trafficking and Conspiracy to commit murder and Tom needed a place to lay low the Atlanta Journal, see: ARCHIVES, search, PAPANIER and COPPOLA] 

After attending church, Papania wanted to murder the pastor who saw the little boy in him crying to be loved by his father. Instead of killing the minister as planned, Papania accepted Christ.

 "I was on my knees in the middle of his office, and for the first time in 30 years, crying," says Papania. "I mean crying where my body was just wracked."

[the pastor would agree with the above, but then he also attended the trial and HEARD tom sear on the Bible that he was NEVER a meber of the mob and did nothing at all.. and then still supported Tom after he began to tell another story, Why? the pastor went from a mobile home church to a BIG BRICK CHURCH???? ]

Papania hadn't spoken to his father in 23 years. Calling home, he confessed to his dad that all he ever wanted was his love.

"I forgave him," he says. "He forgave me. I think it was one of the most beautiful times I've had with my father."

But when Papania told mob boss Paul Castellano he was cutting ties with the La Cosa Nostra, Castellano put a contract out on his life. Papania gave away every possession he didn't earn himself and found a legitimate job. He also enrolled in a correspondence Bible course. A few months later, Castellano's body lay on a New York street, murdered by the new crime boss John Gotti.

[this would be hilarious if it were not so important. First of all, no contract was ever placed on tom/s head.. never happened, and, he was already a "Christian" for a year when Paul was hit]

"With his death," says Papania about Castellano, "it broke every single tie that I ever had to that family."

Papania's mother lived long enough not only to see him out of the mob but also to start a ministry. Today, Papania speaks to prisoners and youth about God's grace and unconditional love.