Mob Lawyer: Including the Inside Account of Who Killed Jimmy Hoffa and JFK
by Frank Ragano, Selwyn Raab, Nicholas Pileggi

Presents an inside account of the deaths of Jimmy Hoffa and JFK and the FBI plot to murder Castro, by a mob-affiliated attorney who spent fifteen years as one of Hoffa's personal lawyers.

Frank Ragano was born in Tampa Florida in 1923. After earning a Bronze Star in World War II, he returned to his home state and clerked for the Florida Supreme Court.

Early in his career, he represented local mob kingpin Santo Trafficante. He developed a personal and trusted relationship with the gangster. This was to the point where he was recommended to other high profile clients like Carlos Marcello and Jimmy Hoffa.

In 1959 when Fidel Castro took over Cuba, he closed down the mobs casinos and arrested owners like Trafficante. Ragano was dispatched to Cuba and obtained his client's release early in 1960.

He helped Jimmy Hoffa place loans from the Teamsters pension fund – for a fee. Using his attorney-client privilege he carried messages from the mob bosses such as the time Hoffa told him that Bobby Kennedy was not giving him any peace and he would like Trafficante to do something about it.

When the message was delivered the two mobsters didn't seem to be surprised or shock and they didn't say too much. When the assassination took place Hoffa just assumed they did it... and Trafficante celebrated with Ragano who was with him at the time.

Ragano had interesting conversations with Trafficante who told him how the CIA contacted him about taking out Castro. They never succeeded, but neither did the CIAs agents. He said that Marcello's people were feeding Jim Garrison information about Guy Bannister, David Ferrie and Clay Shaw to distract him from the gangster connection.

Regarding Lee Oswald, Trafficante told him that sometime in a mob hit, they find a patsy and make them look guilty to the real killer gets away. He didn't know if this was done or not this time around.

Then knowing his time was short, four days before he died, Santo Trafficante told Ragano in Italian, "Carlos screwed up. "That Bobby (Kennedy) made life miserable for me and my friends... We shouldn't have killed John (Kennedy). We should have killed Bobby."

In 1994, after his clients were dead and he retired from his law practice, Frank Ragano wrote a book called Mob Lawyer.