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Mafia hitman Aladena "Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno was born in a small town near Naples, Italy, in 1913. When he was a young boy his family emigrated to the US and settled in the "Little Italy" section of Cleveland, OH. He found school boring and, after gaining a reputation as a troublemaker and getting into one too many scrapes with school officials, was expelled. He started his criminal career by stealing produce from fruit stands and, when the police showed up, running away "like a weasel", as his friends called it. That earned him the nickname of "Jimmy the Weasel".
As a teenager he went to work for a local gambler and learned the ins and outs of that profession. He soon graduated from running gambling games to robbing games run by other gamblers, but he had a bit more to learn about that--in 1937 he was caught by the police, and wound up with an eight-year stretch in prison for robbery. While he was there his wife Jewel divorced him. Upon his release from prison in 1945 Fratianno left Cleveland and headed west to Los Angeles, to rejoin his ex-wife Jewel and remarry her.
After establishing himself in L.A., Fratianno set up a bookmaking operation with mobsters Frank Bompensiero (aka "Bomp") and Giolamo Adamo, who were part of the Jack Dragna crime family. He rose quickly through the ranks and in 1947 became a "made" member of that family. It was then that he realized the kind of power and influence gangsters had--he once recalled, "You can go into various businesses and people will deal with you because of what you represent. See, you've got all this power. Nobody fucks with you. We can get things done nobody else can". He decided that this was the life for him.
However, he was more than just a mob bookmaker--he was also a mob killer. By his own admission he was involved in the murders of 11 men, five of whom he himself helped kill (one of them being an associate of infamous L.A. gangster Mickey Cohen named Frankie Niccoli, who he killed on Dragna's orders). In 1954 Fratianno was arrested by Los Angeles police for extortion. Tried and convicted, he spent the next six years in prison. When he was released he knew that his former boss Dragna had died and that the organization was now run by a mobster (and USC-educated attorney) named Frank DeSimone. Unhappy with DeSimone's leadership, Fratianno and his buddy Bompensiero left the L.A. family and transferred to the Chicago outfit, and with help from his long-time gangster friend Johnny Roselli was accepted as a member of the Chicago family in the 1960s, although he remained living in the Los Angeles area.
In the mid-'60s Fratianno and his wife started a trucking company--a legitimate one--and it soon became a success, grossing almost $1.5 million per year. However, in 1966 a newspaper in El Centro (CA) learned Fratianno was working there and not paying all of his employees' workers compensation and other benefits. After doing an investigation, the paper published an in-depth story about Fratianno's company, revealing his past mob associations. He was arrested and tried on a variety of charges relating to the setting up and running of the company. He was eventually acquitted, but he and his wife Jewel--who was his partner in the company--lost the business.
On August 4, 1967, Frank DeSimone suddenly died of a heart attack. The next L.A. mob boss elected was Nick Licata. Jimmy never liked Licata, either, but after being boss for six years, Licata died on October 19, 1974. Dominic Brooklier (also known as Jimmy Regace) then took over as mob boss. The L.A. organization was soon back "in the black". Brooklier himself, however, was targeted by state and local authorities and eventually arrested on a variety of charges, tried and imprisoned. Fratianno returned to the L.A. family from the Chicago outfit to help Louis Tom Dragna run the family (Dragna took over as boss with Fratianno assisting temporarily while Brooklier was in prison). In 1976, at the urging of his longtime friend, capo Frank Bompensiero, Fratianno decided to get the L.A. mob involved in the burgeoning pornographic film industry in L.A., and he became involved with shaking down a porn production/distribution company called Forex. However, Fratianno came to learn that Forex was actually an FBI sting, a front set up to ensnare L.A. mobsters trying to shake down pornographers. He also realized that Bompensiero, who had gotten them involved in Forex in the first place, was an FBI informant. After consulting with the imprisoned Brooklier, L.A. mob associates decided that Bompensiero had to go. On Feb. 10, 1977, mob associate Thomas Ricciardi shot and killed "Bomp" near an AM/PM gas station in San Diego. Jack LoCiero drove the getaway car.
Bomp's murder, however, did not end Fratianno's problems. He soon discovered that there was a contract out on his life. He decided the best way for him to stay alive was to trade his knowledge of the inner workings of the mob for protection from the government and began negotiations with the FBI, eventually entering the US Marshals Service Witness Protection Program. He became a government witness and ended up testifying in trials of such major mob figures as Funzie Tieri, Tony Salerno, Mike Rizzitello, Joseph Aiuppa, Carmine Persico and Fratianno's former mob boss Dominic Brooklier.
Fratianno also authored a best-selling book with Ovid Demaris, called "The Last Mafioso". He later wrote a second book with author Michael Zuckerman, titling it "Vengeance Is Mine". In 1991, after the second book, the Marshals Service decided to drop him from witness protection, even though the FBI protested vigorously (earlier, as part of his agreement with the feds, Fratianno served a few years in jail, and in 1981 he and his wife Jean entered the Witness Protection Program). However, the Marshals Service decided that it wasn't "a retirement plan for former mobsters", and that they no longer needed Fratianno as a witness.
Jimmy Fratianno died peacefully, in his sleep, in 1993 of Alzheimer's disease in Oklahoma. He was 79.
