Aladena James Fratianno (born Aladena Fratianno; November 14, 1913 – June 29, 1993), also known as "Jimmy the Weasel", was an Italian-born American

mobster A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from ''mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...

who was acting boss of the

Los Angeles crime family The Los Angeles crime family, also known as the L.A. Mafia or the Southern California crime family, is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate based in Los Angeles as part of the larger Italian-American Mafia. Since its inception in the earl ...

. After his arrest in 1977, Fratianno become an

informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informan ...

and entered the

Witness Protection Program Witness protection is security provided to a threatened person providing testimonial evidence to the justice system, including defendants and other clients, before, during, and after a trial, usually by police. While a witness may only require p ...

in 1980. He admitted to having killed five people. Later in life, he became a writer.

Early life

Fratianno was born in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, Italy, in 1913, later immigrating with his family to the United States, settling near

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, 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 Little Italy is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood. The concept of "Little Italy" holds many different aspects of the Italian culture. There are s ...

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 Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, California, where he associated with underworld figure

Mickey Cohen Meyer Harris "Mickey" Cohen (September 4, 1913 – July 29, 1976) was an American gangster, boxer and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles during the mid-20th century. Early life Mickey Cohen was born on September 4, 1913, in New York City to Je ...

. In 1951, he was arrested but later released in connection with the gangland-style killing 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 San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County. Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is the ...

. 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, who he had met in an airport in 1966, in 1975.

International connections

Fratianno was known to have global connections. One such connection was with Australian organised crime figures. In 1976, Australian criminal

Murray Riley Murray Stewart Riley (5 October 1925 – 2020) was an Australian Olympic rowing athlete, who, after leaving a career as a police officer, gained notoriety as a criminal. Riley represented Australia at the 1952 and 1956 Summer Olympics in double ...

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. Fratianno also associated with Australian/Hungarian transport magnate and managing director of

Thomas Nationwide Transport Thomas Nationwide Transport, commonly known by its TNT acronym, and in its later years as TNT Limited, was an Australian logistics and transport company. Founded in 1946, it was taken over by KPN in 1996 and in 1998 became part of the TNT Pos ...

Peter Abeles Sir Peter Emil Herbert Abeles, AC (25 April 192425 June 1999) was an Australian transportation magnate. A refugee from Hungary, he became a businessman in Australia, and was knighted in 1972. Career Abeles was born in Vienna, in Austria, but ...

.Tony Reeves (2007). ''Mr Sin: The Abe Saffron Dossier'' (pp. 83–85). NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin. Through Fratianno's connections with Teamsters and Longshoremen's unions, particularly with Rudy Tham, a San Francisco Teamsters leader, Abeles was able to use his company to smuggle drugs in and out of the U.S., as well as reduce industrial tensions on the waterfront.

Acting Boss

In 1975, the boss of the Los Angeles family,

Dominic Brooklier Dominic Phillip Brooklier (born Domenico Brucceleri; November 19, 1914 — July 18, 1984) was an American mobster and boss of the Los Angeles crime family of the Mafia during the mid-1970s who mainly worked in pornography, extortion, and gambli ...

, was sent to prison, and

Louis Tom Dragna Louis Tom Dragna (; July 18, 1920 – November 16, 2012) was an Italian-American mobster, nephew of Jack Dragna and son of Tom Dragna. He was active in the Los Angeles crime family from the 1940s until the early 1980s. Early life Louis Tom Dragn ...

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. Soon after, Fratianno was approached by Dragna in regards to having

Frank Bompensiero Frank "Bomp" Bompensiero (October 29, 1905 – February 10, 1977) was a Mafia hitman and longtime caporegime in the Los Angeles crime family. In 1956, with the death of boss Jack Dragna, Bompensiero was demoted to the rank of soldier by the new ...

murdered. Bompensiero was one of the few

made men In the American and Sicilian Mafia, a made man is a fully initiated member of the Mafia. To become "made", an associate first must be Italian or of Italian descent and sponsored by another made man. An inductee will be required to take the oa ...

that Fratianno trusted, as they were old friends, and he was infuriated that the Los Angeles family would give him such a 'contract'. At this point Fratianno felt that he was tricked into becoming co acting boss with Louie Dragna, a leadership position which required him to be transferred from the

Chicago Outfit The Chicago Outfit (also known as the Outfit, the Chicago Mafia, the Chicago Mob, the Chicago crime family, the South Side Gang or The Organization) is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate or crime family based in Chicago, Illinois, tha ...

back to the Los Angeles family. Because of his close relationship with Frank Bompensiero, Dominic Brooklier assumed that Fratianno could easily lay a trap, and murder Bompensiero. Fratianno stalled the murder contract for months, until the contract was given to other L.A. mob associates. Dominic Brooklier was released 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 to Jimmy and other L.A. mob members that Brooklier was ready to resume his position as L.A. Mob Boss. Jimmy Fratianno was once again a L.A. mob soldier.

Last stages of Mafia career

Some time between February 11 and May 16, 1977, Brooklier summoned Fratianno to a sit down and accused him running a separate 'crew' in the Los Angeles territory and saying, "Jimmy, you've got a bad mouth, like ompensiero.." In 1977 Brooklier started claiming that Fratianno was never Acting Boss and that Fratianno was misrepresenting himself. Jimmy Fratianno began to suspect that Brooklier was trying to poison his mob reputation, and lay the groundwork to have him killed. Then at the wake for Tony Delsanter, Fratianno learned that

Cleveland crime family The Cleveland crime family or Cleveland Mafia is the collective name given to a succession of Italian-American organized crime gangs based in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. A part of the Italian-American Mafia (or ''Cosa Nostra'') phenom ...

boss

James Licavoli James T. Licavoli (born Vincentio Licavoli; August 18, 1904 − November 23, 1985), also known as "Jack White" or "Blackie", was an American mobster based in Cleveland, Ohio, and one of the earliest organized crime figures to be convicted under t ...

had a mole in the FBI, a female clerk, that was feeding the family documents. Licavoli also told Fratianno that the Family had the code numbers for two informants and that the FBI clerk was working on getting their names.

Government witness and later life

On October 6, 1977,

Irish mob The Irish Mob (also known as the Irish mafia or Irish organized crime) is a collective of organized crime syndicates composed of ethnic Irish members which operate primarily in Ireland, the United States, Canada and Australia, and have been in ...

boss

Danny Greene Daniel John Patrick Greene (November 14, 1933 – October 6, 1977) was an Irish-American organized crime figure based in Cleveland, Ohio. Greene gained power first in the local chapter of the International Longshoremen's Association, where h ...

, a secret

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

informant and mortal enemy of the

, was killed by a

car bomb A car bomb, bus bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles. Car bombs can be roughly divided ...

outside his dentist's office in

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

Lyndhurst, Ohio Lyndhurst is a small city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, and an eastern suburb of Cleveland. The population was 14,050 at the 2020 census. A small part of Lyndhurst was originally part of Mayfield Township. History The land currently c ...

. Soon after,

Ray Ferritto Raymond W. Ferritto (April 8, 1929 − May 10, 2004) was an Italian-American mobster from Erie, Pennsylvania. Ferritto is best known for the 1977 assassination of Irish mob boss Danny Greene. He served as hitman and soldier for the Clevelan ...

, a soldier in the Cleveland and Los Angeles crime families, was arrested for the murder based on a detailed sketch by an eyewitness. Evidence found during a police search of his house further proved Ferritto's role in the murder. Upon hearing that Ferritto had been arrested, Cleveland Mafia boss

immediately ordered the former's assassination. When Ferritto learned of this, he became a cooperating witness and testified against his co-defendants in the 1978 trial. The

Cuyahoga County Cuyahoga County ( or ) is a large urban County (United States), county located in the Northeast Ohio, northeastern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. It is situated on the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the Canada–United States border, U.S.- ...

District Attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a l ...

indicted Licavoli,

Angelo Lonardo Angelo Anthony Lonardo (January 21, 1911 − March 31, 2006) was a mobster who became the acting boss of Cleveland crime family in the early 1980s. Lonardo was born in 1911 in Cleveland to Joseph and Concetta Lonardo. His godfather was Anthony ...

, Ferritto, Ronald Carabbia and 15 other members of the

for conspiring towards Danny Greene's murder. Ferritto also implicated Fratianno in the planning of Greene's murder, and Fratianno was indicted for charges related to the bombing. Similarly fearing for his safety, Fratianno also agreed to become a government witness against the Mafia. In return for his testimony, he pleaded guilty to multiple murder charges and received a five-year prison sentence, of which he served 21 months. In 1980, after his testimony resulted in the racketeering convictions of five reputedly high level Mafia figures, Fratianno entered the federal

. 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 Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

and ''Vengeance is Mine'' (1987) with author Michael J. Zuckerman, Fratianno was expelled from Witness Protection after the

Justice Department A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

noted that it had spent almost $1 million on the Fratiannos in 10 years. On June 29, 1993, Fratianno died of natural causes at his home in an undisclosed U.S. city, believed to be

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...

. His wife Jean said that he had suffered from

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

, as well as a series of strokes. Fratianno is portrayed by Joseph Riccobene in

Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominatio ...

's crime film ''

The Irishman ''The Irishman'' (subtitled onscreen as ''I Heard You Paint Houses'') is a 2019 American epic gangster film directed and produced by Martin Scorsese and written by Steven Zaillian, based on the 2004 nonfiction book '' I Heard You Paint Hou ...

'' (2019).

Murders

Fratianno had admitted to committing five murders: * Frank Niccoli - Niccoli was a bodyguard and collector for mob boss

. Following Jack Dragna's orders, Fratianno tried to convince Niccoli to leave Cohen and join Dragna's mob, but Niccoli refused. In a few minutes, Fratianno and Joseph Dippolito strangled Niccoli to death. (1949) * Frank Borgia - Borgia was a Los Angeles

winemaker A winemaker or vintner is a person engaged in winemaking. They are generally employed by wineries or wine companies, where their work includes: *Cooperating with viticulturists *Monitoring the maturity of grapes to ensure their quality and to deter ...

/former bootlegger and was a member of the Los Angeles crime family, according to Fratianno. Borgia was resisting an extortion attempt from Gaspare Matranga and Dragna. Bompensiero and Fratianno had a friend of Borgia's bring him to a house. Then Fratianno and Bompensiero strangled Borgia with a rope and other mobsters buried him. (1951) *

Anthony Brancato Anthony Brancato (July 18, 1914 – August 6, 1951) was an American criminal who served as a freelance gunman to various Mafia and syndicate organizations. Early career Born in Kansas City in 1914, Brancato became involved in armed robbery a ...

- Brancato and his criminal associate Tony Trombino were two young mobsters who were performing robberies in Los Angeles and Las Vegas without the sanction of the Los Angeles family. Jack Dragna told Jimmy Fratianno they needed to be "clipped", and asked Jimmy to set "something up". Within a few days, Fratianno set up the two Tonys and killed them in their car."The Two Tonys"
Allan May Crime Magazine (August 6, 1951) * Anthony Trombino - see Anthony Brancato. (August 6, 1951) * Louis Strauss - Louis (Russian Louie) Strauss was a former casino owner in Lake Tahoe, and a mob-connected man who was trying to extort money from Las Vegas casino owner

Benny Binion Lester Ben Binion (November 20, 1904 – December 5, 1989), better known as Benny Binion, was an American gambling icon, career criminal, and convicted murderer who established illegal gambling operations in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area. H ...

, a friend of Dragna's. Fratianno set Strauss up by befriending him in Las Vegas, and telling Louis he had $10,000 in cash in Los Angeles he would loan him. After driving to Los Angeles with Fratianno, Strauss then walked into a house, where Bompensiero and Fratianno surprised him with a rope and strangled him to death."Frank Bompensiero: San Diego Hitman, Boss & FBI Informant (Part One)"
Allan May Crime Magazine (1953)

References

*Sifakis, Carl. ''The Mafia Encyclopedia''. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. *Sifakis, Carl. ''The Encyclopedia of American Crime''. New York: Facts on File Inc., 2005. *Demaris, Ovid. ''The Last Mafioso: The Treacherous World of Jimmy Fratianno''. Bantam Books, 1981.
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (16 September 1979). "Evidence Mafia already has a toehold in Australia".
Includes photographs of James Fratianno meeting Bela Csidei.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fratianno, Jimmy 1913 births 1993 deaths American gangsters of Italian descent American crime bosses Italian crime bosses Italian emigrants to the United States People from Cleveland Los Angeles crime family Chicago Outfit mobsters Cleveland crime family American people convicted of robbery American extortionists American people convicted of murder People who entered the United States Federal Witness Protection Program Mafia hitmen Organized crime memoirists American writers of Italian descent 20th-century American memoirists Non-fiction writers about organized crime in the United States American male non-fiction writers Federal Bureau of Investigation informants People with Alzheimer's disease 20th-century American male writers