Nabbing the .22-Cal. Killers

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.

Fratianno began his career in crime as a small-time hoodlum and pimp in Cleveland. He moved to California in the early '40s, and by 1975 had become head of West Coast operations for gangland chieftains in New York and Chicago. Fratianno was indicted last November, along with Rizzitello, Ricciardi and Locicero, for trying to extort $20,000 from FBI agents who were posing as pornography dealers in Los Angeles. In December, Fratianno and eight other Mafiosi were indicted for the bombing murders of Cleveland racketeer Daniel Greene and his associate John Nardi.

Always a feisty, swaggering type, Fratianno in recent years offended other California Mafiosi by strutting around as if he were the boss. He also angered Chicago Mafia Chief Joseph Aiuppa by violating Mob etiquette. Twice last year Aiuppa had to intercede to halt the greedy Fratianno's attempts to extort money from underworld associates. In December, Chicago Mob bosses finally decided to get rid of him for good. FBI agents spotted henchmen of Chicago Triggerman Tony Spilotro skulking in the bushes near Fratianno's house near San Francisco. When the agents warned him that his life was in danger, Fratianno decided to turn informer. Now he is in the protective custody of U.S. marshals, and the Mob has set a $100,000 bounty on his head.

In return for Fratianno's testimony in Bompensiero's murder, the Justice Department will probably drop its indictments against him and enroll him in an exclusive group of turncoat gangsters who have been given new identities, jobs and homes. Says one official: "He could really clear up a lot of questions and open a lot of doors if he were to open up completely. Fratianno could be one of the most valuable informants ever. He met all the right people in Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Miami. He touched all the right bases." Thus the Weasel can demand--and get--almost anything within reason, as long as he keeps talking. sb

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