The Mafia's Weasel is now the FBI's most valuable informant
A year ago last week, Mafioso Frank ("Bomp") Bompensiero, 71, emerged from a telephone booth near his home in San Diego, and was shot four times in the head and neck. His death was a severe blow to the FBI, since Bomp served both as consigliere (counselor) of a Mafia family in Los Angeles and as the FBI's highest-placed informant in the crime brotherhood. To track down his killers, the bureau stepped up its investigation into the murders of at least 20 people, including six FBI informants and potential witnesses, in the past three years. All had been rubbed out with the same kind of weapon used to kill Bomp: a silencer-equipped .22-cal. automatic pistol. Now, TIME has learned, in a major break in the war against organized crime, federal authorities are ready to indict six Mafiosi for racketeering activities, including Bompensiero's murder.
The Government's case will rest largely on the testimony of Jimmy ("the Weasel") Fratianno, 67, once the Mafia's No. 2 man in California and a well-traveled hit man himself. He began helping the FBI in return for protection after a falling out with his former gangland friends. Fratianno is believed by police to have committed up to 16 murders on the West Coast and helped plan others in New York and Ohio. Says one FBI official in Washington: "Fratianno knows what he's talking about. In many of those cases he was right there when the guns boomed."
According to Fratianno, Bompensiero's murder was sanctioned by three Los Angeles Mafia chieftains, Don Dominick Brooklier, Under Boss Sam Sciortino and former Boss Louis Tom Dragna. The killers, says the informant, were Mob Muscleman Thomas Ricciardi and Jack Locicero, the present consigliere of the West Coast crime syndicate. Another of their associates, Mafia Enforcer Mike Rizzitello, has not been connected with Bomp's murder, but will be charged with extortion in the same indictment. All six will be tried under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Law, which provides penalties of up to 20 years in jail for anyone convicted of engaging in a "pattern of racketeering activity."
Besides giving evidence on the Bompensiero murder, Fratianno has provided the FBI with details of at least ten West Coast gangland slayings since 1951. Most were disciplinary actions aimed at small-fry mobsters. He has also given authorities a firsthand account of the Mafia's Las Vegas rackets. He has described how Chicago Mob bosses demanded $1 million from an unnamed casino owner. When their regular Las Vegas contact, John Roselli, failed to collect the money, the dons ordered Roselli killed; he was asphyxiated in 1976 (Roselli gained notoriety in 1975 when he told a Senate committee that he and another mobster had been recruited by the CIA in the 1960s to assassinate Cuban Premier Fidel Castro). Next, the bosses turned to Rizzitello for help. Just as he began pressuring the casino owner, the FBI, tipped by Fratianno, intervened and scared Rizzitello off. Further, Fratianno has told the FBI that he and his West Coast associates extorted payoffs of up to $50,000 from another Las Vegas casino owner whenever they needed walking-around money.