Oct 24, 2007 10:00 pm US/Central
FBI: Mob Considered 'Whacking' Rudy Giuliani
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Rudolph Giuliani, former New York City Mayor, smiles during a Republican presidential candidate debate at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., on May 3, 2007. (AP)
AP
The bosses of New York's five Mafia families discussed killing Rudy Giuliani in 1986 when he was a mob-busting federal prosecutor, according to testimony Wednesday in the murder trial of a former FBI agent.
The details about the plot -- which never took shape -- were given to ex-FBI agent Roy Lindley DeVecchio by the late Gregory Scarpa Sr., a capo-turned-informant, according to the testimony of FBI agent William Bolinder. DeVecchio is accused of forming an illicit alliance with Scarpa that lead to at least four slayings. He has denied the allegations.
Before Giuliani became mayor of New York, he had a track record of high-profile mob prosecutions. In 1986 -- the same year the mobsters purportedly discussed the hit -- Giuliani indicted the heads of the five families in the so-called "Commission" trial. Giuliani is now a GOP presidential hopeful.
In testimony Wednesday, Bolinder said that DeVecchio's 1987 debriefing report stated Scarpa told him the late Gambino crime boss John Gotti was for ordering the hit, and had the support of the leader of the Colombo crime family, but the heads of the Bonanno, Lucchese and Genovese groups were against the idea, and it never materialized.
Scarpa had a colorful history, and it wouldn't be the first time that outlandish stories followed him: He purportedly helped the FBI solve the 1964 murders of three civil-rights workers in Mississippi by strong-arming a Ku Klux Klan member.
DeVecchio, 66, has pleaded not guilty in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn to four counts of murder in what prosecutors have billed as one of the worst law enforcement corruption cases in U.S. history. At his request, the trial is being heard by a judge and not a jury.
Prosecutors say Scarpa showered DeVecchio with cash, stolen jewelry, liquor -- and even prostitutes -- in exchange for confidential information, according to an indictment. Scarpa used the inside tips about the identities and whereabouts of suspected rats and rivals to rub out at least four victims in the late 1980s and early 1990s, authorities said.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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