Mafia allegedly plotted hit on Justice Burger, FBI files show
The FBI warned Chief Justice Warren Burger.
WASHINGTON -- It could have been just idle chitchat among bored inmates. The problem was, they weren't your average inmates, and the subject of their threatening chatter was the chief justice of the United States.
Languishing at the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa., mobsters from three top Mafia families allegedly had murder on their minds in 1979, according to recently released FBI documents. And the intended victim was Warren E. Burger.
At least that was the story a confidential informant told the FBI two years later. For good measure, the informant claimed, the plotters had also discussed hitting an unnamed federal judge apparently seated in New Jersey.
What made the idea plausible was the identity of the players -- big names in two of New York City's Mafia families and a Montreal don, the documents show.
The bureau took the information seriously enough that Burger was alerted. In addition, FBI headquarters in Washington approved going to mobsters in seven US cities to warn them off doing anything rash that they might come to regret.
"FBI HQ concurs with Newark's recommendation to contact LCN family heads and advise them of FBI knowledge of the alleged plot in general terms," said a June 1, 1982, memo from the office of FBI Director William H. Webster. "None of the proposed victims are to be named in the contacts with the LCN figures."
"LCN" stands for La Cosa Nostra, the Italian Mafia. The memo directed FBI agents to reach out to Mafia bosses in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Newark , New Haven, New York City, Albany, N.Y., and Buffalo.
The documents appear to reveal a purported Mafia plot against the chief justice of the United States. Burger was later targeted in an unrelated scheme by an unnamed Raleigh, N.C., man whose diary seemed to threaten vaguely several senior government officials.
Burger was notified of the alleged Mafia threat at the outset, as were US marshals in charge of protecting him. He died in 1995 of congestive heart failure.
The FBI's 15-month investigation, which petered out when agents came up dry on evidence, was detailed in part in 143 pages of heavily redacted teletypes and other internal memos that were released in response to media Freedom of Information Act requests. They were first reported by The Gazette in Montreal.
The probe began with a Dec. 18, 1981, teletype from the FBI's Seattle office alerting headquarters and agents in five other offices of a recent conversation with "a source of information whose identity must be protected."
The topic of the two-page memo: "Plot to assassinate Chief Justice Warren Burger . . . and unknown US District judge." It named Phillip Rastelli, head of the Bonanno crime family in New York; Joseph Gambino, a capo in the New York family bearing his name; and Montreal mob boss Frank Cotroni as suspects.
All three were in Lewisburg at the time of the alleged plot -- Cotroni on a drug sentence, Rastelli for racketeering, Gambino for tax evasion.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
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