The bosses of New York’s five Cosa Nostra families discussed killing then-federal prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani in 1986, an informant told the FBI, according to testimony Wednesday in Brooklyn state court.
But while the late Gambino crime boss John Gotti pushed the idea, he had the support of only Carmine Persico, the leader of the Colombo crime family, according to testimony.
“The Bosses of the Lucchese, Bonanno and Genovese families rejected the idea, despite strong efforts to convince them otherwise by Gotti and Persico,” said an FBI report of the information given by informant Gregory Scarpa Sr.
Information about the purported murder plot was given to the FBI in 1987 by Scarpa, a Colombo captain, according to the testimony of FBI agent William Bolinder in Brooklyn State Supreme Court.
Bolinder was testifying as a prosecution witness in the murder trial of ex-FBI agent Roy Lindley DeVecchio, who handled Scarpa for years while the mobster was a key informant. Prosecutors contend that DeVecchio passed information to Scarpa that the mobster used in murders.
In his testimony, Bolinder described the contents of a voluminous FBI file on Scarpa, who died of AIDS in 1994.
In September 1987, DeVecchio reported that Scarpa told him that the five mob families talked about killing Giuliani about a year earlier, said Bolinder. It was in 1986 that Giuliani staff at the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office prosecuted bosses of La Cosa Nostra families.