From Publishers Weekly
Sure to be widely discussed, this is the autobiography of Florida attorney Ragano who convinced himself that mafia chieftain Santo Trafficante and his New Orleans colleague Carlos Marcello were not such bad guys. Ragano was Trafficante and Marcello's lawyer for decades and through them met another client, union leader Jimmy Hoffa, whom he represented for 15 years. The story, which profits from the smooth style of New York Times crime reporter Raab, has less impact as an account of a man who woke up too late than for its revelations about significant events of our time. According to Ragano, Hoffa was killed because his successor as Teamster president, Frank Fitzsimmons, was easier for the mob to control. And he claims that Trafficante on his deathbed muttered, "We shouldn't have killed Giovanni. We should've killed Bobby"--a statement that's sure to feed the fire of those who believe that JFK was assassinated by the mafia. Ragano, who maintains here that he was the victim of persecution, was imprisoned for tax evasion in April of 1993, sentenced to serve "no more than one year." Photos not seen by PW . Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Ragano was attorney to Florida mobster Santo Trafficante as well as one of Jimmy Hoffa's personal lawyers. He devotes the earlier part of his book to detailing his starry-eyed admiration of Trafficante, whose activities in Florida centered around the widely accepted game of bolita. Ragano gradually became aware of Trafficante's wider mob activities and affiliations, but by then his loyalty had been secured. He tells of his boss's success with Havana casinos, Trafficante's near execution when Castro took over, and his mysterious escape back to Miami. Alternating between first-person and omniscient points of view, Ragano also writes of defending Jimmy Hoffa on fraud charges; his awareness of the conflict between Hoffa, the mob, and the Kennedys; and his unwitting role in the alleged conspiracy to assassinate JFK. He offers detailed accounts of Hoffa's last day as well as a plot to murder Castro. As Ragano drops names (e.g., the obligatory Sinatra story) and juicy tidbits of gossip, the narrative takes on a decidedly tabloid tone. The book is a quick read, and there's no denying its fascination, but one is left feeling slightly soiled and doubting Ragano's veracity on certain key points. For popular true crime collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/93.- Ben Harrison, East Orange Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
This account of his legal career defending heavyweights such as mob chieftain Santo Trafficante and labor boss Jimmy Hoffa is Ragano's own mea culpa, a confession of sins in representing some of the most notorious people of the last 30 years. Introduced to the low-key Trafficante in one of the don's Cuban casinos in the days before Castro's revolution, Ragano became enamored of the high-flying, big-money Mafia life; he quickly became a Trafficante confidante, and the boss introduced him to fiery Teamsters Union president Hoffa, easily the most magnetic character in the book. The most fascinating section of the book is before and after the assassination of JFK, seen by the mobsters as a traitor whom they had helped get elected. After the "hit" on the president, Ragano watched uneasily as Trafficante and Hoffa raised their glasses in celebration of effectively ridding themselves of the pesky Bobby Kennedy through his brother's murder. Ragano became more disillusioned during his own legal troubles, later, when Trafficante shunned him and his wife was spied on by the FBI. Effective at allowing the reader to see both the glamorous and the terrible down sides of organized crime. Joe Collins
From Kirkus Reviews
A riveting memoir of life inside the murderous world of Mafia chieftain Santo Trafficante and Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, by their personal lawyer (and longtime New York Times reporter Raab)--filled with chilling, credible revelations of mob involvement in the murders of President Kennedy and Hoffa. Ragano started practice as the prot‚g‚ of a prominent Tampa criminal defense attorney, Pat Whittaker. Soon, he ingratiated himself with Trafficante, Whittaker's principal client, then became Trafficante's full-time lawyer, defending the mob boss and his associates in occasional criminal cases, tweaking the Florida authorities, and passing time in the Mafioso's Havana gambling clubs. Arrested by Castro's men in 1959, Trafficante was saved from almost certain execution by the lawyer's intervention, and by 1961, Trafficante had brought Ragano into contact with Jimmy Hoffa, hoping that Ragano's influence would induce Hoffa to make loans to the mob from the Teamsters' pension funds. In 1963, Hoffa, hard pressed by Bobby Kennedy's ``Get Hoffa'' squad, asked Ragano to tell Trafficante and New Orleans boss Carlos Marcello to kill John Kennedy. Ragano relayed the message, and, after the union boss's five-year prison term for jury tampering, he tried in vain to persuade Hoffa not to reenter union activities until Hoffa's 1975 disappearance. Ragano writes that in a 1987 conversation, Trafficante confirmed to Ragano that he was privy to CIA contracts to kill Castro, that he and Marcello had conspired to kill Kennedy, and that mobsters at the behest of Hoffa's successor, Ed Fitzsimmons, murdered Hoffa. Ragano's prominence as a lawyer ended with convictions for tax evasion, disbarment, a brief reinstatement as an attorney, and another conviction for tax violations. Ragano is presently serving a one-year term. An insider's impossible-to-put-down account of life within the ``Honorable Society.'' -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Mob Lawyer: Including the inside Account of Who Killed Jimmy Hoffa and JFK FROM THE PUBLISHER
A bullet in the head is the customary penalty for violators of omerta, the Mafia's code of silence. Nevertheless, Frank Ragano, a lawyer who spent thirty years working for Mafia bosses like Santo Trafficante of Florida and Carlos Marcello of New Orleans, and fifteen years as Jimmy Hoffa's personal attorney, has come forward to tell an unprecedented insider's story. Never before has someone so highly placed revealed what goes on behind the closed doors of organized crime. This is the unvarnished story of the murders, the fixed juries, the sweetheart deals, and the political corruption that characterized the heyday of the Mafia. Here is unprecedented detail of the day-to-day operations of America's most profitable and influential criminal organizations, huge operations whose tremendous growth from the fifties through the seventies was due in part to brilliant, aggressive, highly paid attorneys who kept the wheels of these gambling, drug, and prostitution factories well greased. Frank Ragano acted as a conduit between the mob and politicians, crooked businessmen, and powerful labor leaders. He sorted out kickbacks in the billion-dollar Teamsters pension fund and kept his clients out of jail. For the first time anywhere Ragano exposes the truth about Mafia "cooperation" with the CIA plot to murder Castro. He provides an enthralling hour-by-hour account of the day Jimmy Hoffa was killed, including who ordered the hit and why. Here, too, is the story of how Jimmy Hoffa's animus toward Bobby Kennedy erupted in a brawl between the two men in the offices of the Justice Department. And, most shocking of all, Ragano tells how he unwittingly delivered the message - from Hoffa to the Mob - that may have resulted in JFK's assassination. This is a memoir that will stand as the most revelatory and richly detailed history of the Mafia in this century.
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