Jimmy Fratianno

Fratianno was born in Naples, Italy, in 1913, later immigrating with his family to the United States, settling near Cleveland, Ohio. He was first arrested at the age of 19, on suspicion of rape, but was not charged. Two years later, he was acquitted of robbery charges, but in 1937, was convicted of robbery and spent more than seven years in an Ohio state prison. Fratianno earned his nickname "Weasel" as a boy when from running from the police in the Little Italy section of Cleveland. A chase witness shouted "Look at that weasel run!" and the police quickly attached the nickname to his criminal record, falsely believing it was his alias. He was paroled in 1945, and moved to Los Angeles, California, where he associated with underworld figure Mickey Cohen.

In 1951, he was arrested but later released in connection with the gangland-style slaying of two mobsters believed to have plotted to kill Cohen. In 1954, Fratianno was convicted of attempted extortion; he served 6 years and 3 months, mostly at San Quentin State Prison. In 1968, he pleaded guilty to charges stemming from phony pay agreements with drivers at a trucking company he owned, and in 1971 he entered another guilty plea, this time for extortion. Fratianno married Jean in 1975, whom he had met in an airport in 1966.

In 1975, the boss of the Los Angeles family, Dominic Brooklier, was sent to prison, and Louis Tom Dragna was made acting boss. He accepted the position on the condition that he run the family together with Fratianno. Fratianno accepted the proposal with the understanding that he would carry the majority of the responsibility.

Fratianno was known to have global connections. One such connection was with Australian organised crime figures. In 1976, Australian criminal Murray Riley met with Fratianno in San Francisco, allegedly, to organize drug shipments. The same year, Sydney businessman Bela Csidei also met with Fratianno in San Francisco. The FBI took photographs of this meeting.

Brooklier returned from prison in October 1976 after serving 16 months. After a transition period he called Fratianno to a meeting some time before February 11, 1977 and announced he was ready to resume his position as Boss. Fratianno was once again a soldier.

Some time between February 11 and May 16, 1977, Brooklier summoned Fratianno to a meeting and confronted him about a rumor that Fratianno was running a separate 'crew' in the Los Angeles territory and saying, "Jimmy, you've got a bad mouth, like [Bompensiero]..." In June 1977, Fratianno learned that Brooklier had started a rumor that he had never made Fratianno Acting Boss and that Fratianno was misrepresenting himself. Fratianno began to suspect that Brooklier was trying to poison his reputation within the Mafia thus laying the groundwork for a sanctioned hit, or execution, of himself. Then at the wake for Tony Delsanter, Fratianno learned that the Cleveland family had a connection in the FBI, a clerk, that was feeding them documents about Mafia informants. James Licavoli told him that the Cleveland family had the code numbers for two informants and that the FBI clerk was working on getting their names.

On October 6, 1977, Danny Greene was killed by a car bomb in Ohio, and Ray Ferritto was arrested for the murder. Ferritto implicated Fratianno in the planning of the murder, and Fratianno was indicted for charges related to the bombing. Fearing for his safety, Fratianno agreed to become a government witness against the Mafia. In return for his testimony, he pleaded guilty to the murder charges and received a five-year prison sentence, of which he served 21 months.

In 1980, after testifying for the government that led to the racketeering convictions of five reputed Mafia figures, Fratianno entered the federal Witness Protection Program. Fratianno claimed that the Mafia had a $100,000 contract on his life. In 1987, after he published two biographies, The Last Mafioso (1980) with author Ovid Demaris and Vengeance is Mine (1987) with author Michael J. Zuckerman, Fratianno was expelled from Witness Protection after the Justice Department noted that it had spent almost $1 million on the Fratiannos in 10 years.

On June 29, 1993, Fratianno died in of natural causes in his home in an undisclosed U.S. city, believed to be Oklahoma City. His wife Jean had said that he suffered from Alzheimer's Disease, as well as a series of strokes.