Mafia plot on Giuliani revealed

New York mafia bosses discussed killing Rudy Giuliani in 1986 when he was a mob-busting federal prosecutor, according to testimony in the murder trial of a former FBI agent.

The details about the plot – which never took shape – were given to ex-FBI agent Roy Lindley DeVecchio by the late Gregory Scarpa Sr, a capo-turned-informant, according to the testimony of FBI agent William Bolinder.

DeVecchio is accused of forming an illicit alliance with Scarpa that led to at least four slayings.

He has denied the allegations.

Before Giuliani became mayor of New York, he had a track record of high-profile mob prosecutions.

In 1986 – the same year the mobsters purportedly discussed the hit – Giuliani indicted the heads of the city’s five Mafia families in the so-called “Commission” trial.

Giuliani is now a Republican presidential hopeful.

In testimony yesterday, Bolinder said that DeVecchio’s 1987 debriefing report stated Scarpa told him the late Gambino crime boss John Gotti was for ordering the hit, and had the support of the leader of the Colombo crime family, but the heads of the Bonanno, Lucchese and Genovese groups were against the idea, and it never materialised.

Scarpa had a colourful history, and it wouldn’t be the first time that outlandish stories followed him.

He purportedly helped the FBI solve the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi by strong-arming a Ku Klux Klan member.

DeVecchio, 66, has pleaded not guilty in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn to four counts of murder in what prosecutors have billed as one of the worst law enforcement corruption cases in US history.

At his request, the trial is being heard by a judge and not a jury.

Prosecutors say Scarpa showered DeVecchio with cash, stolen jewellery, liquor - and even prostitutes – in exchange for confidential information, according to an indictment.

Scarpa used the inside tips about the identities and whereabouts of suspected rats and rivals to rub out at least four victims in the late 1980s and early 1990s, authorities said.