Rudy Giuliani on Thursday brushed off new reports that top mob bosses narrowly decided not to put a hit on him back in the 1980s, saying it wasn't the first time he'd learned of such a plot.
"You get used to it," Giuliani told syndicated radio talk-show host Mike Gallagher.
"Dapper Don" John Gotti, the late head of the Gambino crime family, and Colombo family boss Carmine Persico in 1986 mulled the idea of snuffing out then-Manhattan U.S. attorney Rudy Giuliani, according to testimony given Wednesday during the murder trial of a retired FBI agent.
Giuliani, now the Republican presidential frontrunner, at the time headed the federal government's prosecution of the mob. But the other three chiefs of New York's five mob families — Bonnano, Lucchese and Genovese — rejected the plan, according to an FBI agent who testified Wednesday in the murder trial against a retired agent, The New York Post reports.
Click here to read The New York Post article.
Giuliani said there were plenty of plots against him, and believed he was briefed about this specific one at the time.
"Sure, I knew about it. I mean these things go back into my history. I remember being briefed by the FBI at different times. ... They overlap a little, I get some of them confused," Giuliani said.
"You get used to living with it and you make a choice and you say to yourself, it’s worth doing what you’re doing and it’s always a remote possibility," he said, adding he remembered one of the plots included an Albanian group, forcing him to get protection for one of his assistants.
During the trial Wednesday, FBI agent William Bolinder, testifying for the prosecution, offered as evidence a memo by mob informant Gregory Scarpa Sr. given to his FBI handler Lindley DeVecchio in 1987.
"On Sept. 17, 1987, sources advised that recent information disclosed that approximately a year ago all five NY LCN (La Cosa Nostra) families discussed the idea of killing USA (United States Attorney) Rudy Giuliani and John Gotti and Carmine Persico were in favor of the hit," the memo reads.
DeVecchio, who headed the task force aimed at bringing down the New York mafia, was arrested in March 2006 and accused of supplying Scarpa with inside information that was used by to plan several murders.
Giuliani was undoubtedly an attractive target for the mob, since his staff had prosecuted four of the five mob bosses, including Persico, Lucchese boss Anthony Corallo and Genovese street boss Anthony Salerno, all convicted in October 1986.
Bonnano boss Philip Rastelli had his case dismissed. Gambino boss Paul Castellano was arrested in 1985 and was on bail when he was assassinated outside Sparks Steakhouse in Manhattan, on Gotti's orders.
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