Boško Radonjić

Boško Radonjić (, ; 17 May 194331 March 2011) was a Serbian mobster, former leader of the Westies, a predominantly Irish-American gang based in New York's Hell's Kitchen.

Early life

Radonjić was born in 1943 in Užice. Boško's father, Dragomir, a teacher, was captured and executed during World War II by the Partisans for belonging to the Chetniks led by general Draža Mihailović.

In his late twenties, Radonjić fled the country and immigrated to the United States in 1970. He used his friendship with Red Star Belgrade footballer Milovan Đorić to sneak onto the team bus headed for Graz, which allowed him to get across the border.

American years

Once in America, Radonjić settled in Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York City. He also joined the Serbian Homeland Liberation Movement (SOPO), an anti-communist and terrorist organization headed by Nikola Kavaja. Sharing royalist and anti-communist views, the two men became lifelong friends.

Already known to Yugoslav state security UDBA, Radonjić's activities began to be monitored even more closely by its agents. In 1975, Radonjić took part in a bombing at the Yugoslav mission to the United Nations in which no one was hurt. In 1978, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the 1975 bombing of a Yugoslavian consul's home and for plotting to bomb a Yugoslav social club, both in Chicago.

Upon his release in 1982, Radonjić moved back to New York's West Side and began working as a minor associate of Jimmy Coonan. He seized control of the gang following the imprisonment of many of the Westies leadership during the late 1980s. Under his leadership, he was able to reestablish the Westies' former working relationship with the Gambino crime family under John Gotti, and was involved in the jury tampering during Gotti's original 1986 trial for racketeering. One of the jurors, George Pape, did not disclose that he was a friend of Radonjić during jury selection. After he was empanelled, he let it be known that he was willing to sell his vote to help acquit Gotti. Gambino capo and future underboss Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano paid Pape $60,000 to guarantee at least a hung jury. Pape was convicted
United States v. Randonjich
in November 1992 of jury-tampering charges and sentenced to three years in prison. All charges against Radonjić were dismissed in May 2000.

Back in Serbia

Since 1990, Radonjić had already spent a sizeable amount of time in Serbia, mostly dividing his time between Belgrade where he owned a night club named Lotos in Zmaj Jovina Street and Mount Zlatibor where he owned a casino named Palisade and where he also later built a casino named Club Boss.

1999 arrest in Miami

Though based in the Balkans, Radonjić frequently travelled abroad, especially to Caribbean and South American destinations. During one such trip in late December 1999 after almost a decade spent in the former Yugoslavia, Radonjić was arrested by U.S. custom officials in Miami, Florida. He had been flagged by a customs agent who ran variations of his name and found a warrant from federal court in the New York borough of Brooklyn.

He had been indicted in 1992 for giving a $60,000 bribe to a juror in the 1987 racketeering murder trial of John Gotti, and thus was held without bail as a wanted fugitive. The charges against Radonjić were dropped after the key witness in his case, Gravano, was arrested for drug related offenses. Gravano had been the Gambinos' intermediary between Radonjić and the corrupt juror, Pape. However, the case against Radonjić was based almost entirely on Gravano's testimony, and Gravano's arrest made prosecutors believe his testimony would not be credible.

Radonjić was freed in March 2001. He immediately left the United States and went back to the former Yugoslavia. In subsequent interviews Radonjić claimed the FBI had ulterior motives for persecuting and harassing him:

During spring 2003, following the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić, Radonjić was arrested and questioned as part of Operation Sablja, a wide-sweeping police action initiated by the Serbian authorities under the state of emergency. After spending three days in prison, Radonjić was released. He died following a brief illness in Belgrade, Serbia on 31 March 2011.

In popular culture

*In the 1998 made-for-TV movie '' Witness to the Mob'', a depiction of the life of Sammy the Bull, Radonjić is played by Stephen Payne.
* Niko Bellic, the main character of ''Grand Theft Auto IV'', was inspired by Radonjić due to both being Yugoslav criminals, with ties to Italian and Irish organized crime.

Further reading

*Davis, John H. ''Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family''. New York: HarperCollins, 1993;
*English, T.J. ''The Westies: Inside the Hell's Kitchen Irish Mob''. St Martin's Paperbacks, 1991;

References

External links

* James Ridgway de Szigethy
"J.R.'s Mafia Year In Review – 2000"
AmericanMafia.com
* Daniel Vol
"Radovan Karadzic: A Deeply Misunderstood Mass Murderer"
by


nytimes.com, 9 April 2011

{{DEFAULTSORT:Radonjić, Boško
1943 births
2011 deaths
20th-century American criminals
Abuse of the legal system
American male criminals
American crime bosses
American people of Serbian descent
American prisoners and detainees
Criminals from Manhattan
Gambino crime family
Gangsters from New York City
Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government
Serbian anti-communists
Serbian gangsters
Serbian people imprisoned abroad
Westies (New York gang)
Yugoslav criminals
Yugoslav emigrants to the United States