Authors: Pete Earley
McPherson’s career rose along with Fratianno’s notoriety. Other WITSEC inspectors began modeling
themselves after him, adopting his quiet, self-confident style and copying what became known as the “McPherson look.” Unlike other deputy marshals, who wore off-the-rack suits and favored cowboy boots, McPherson dressed in tailored clothes as expensive as those worn by wiseguys. But it was his sunglasses that became his trademark. Regardless of the hour, season, or whether he was inside or outside a courtroom, McPherson hid his eyes behind sunglasses. “You never could tell what the guy was thinking,” one mobster later commented, “because of those damn sunglasses.” They became an inside joke: How can you tell which deputies are WITSEC inspectors? Answer: They’re the ones who wear sunglasses when they fuck their wives.
One reason Jimmy the Weasel was in high demand was because the Justice Department had begun using the RICO Act to go after mobsters. Although it had become law in 1970, juries had failed initially to convict mobsters under it and federal appeals courts had disagreed in their interpretations of it. But in 1981 the Supreme Court gave prosecutors wide authority under RICO, and overnight it became the most popular charge filed in LCN cases. There was good reason for its use. The Mafia operated much like a hydra, the mythical marsh serpent with nine heads. If one of its heads was cut off, two grew back in its place. A Mafia soldier and capo might be successfully prosecuted now and then, and sent to prison, but the beast survived and other soldiers and capos quickly filled the void. Because crime bosses hid behind legions of wiseguys, it was nearly impossible to kill the brain and heart of the monster. RICO gave prosecutors the weapon they needed. For the first time, being a leader or a participant in a criminal syndicate was itself a crime, a serious one with a serious punishment. If a U.S. attorney
could prove a criminal “enterprise” existed, then every known member from the crime boss on down to the soldier could be convicted, regardless of whether or not they had dirtied their hands by breaking a kneecap or committing a murder. Under RICO, the government could also seize illicitly obtained wealth, which meant it could confiscate mob-run businesses. “Sometimes,” said McPherson, “Fratianno would be only asked one question by a prosecutor at a RICO trial: ‘Was the defendant a made member in the mob?’ That’s all the government put him on the witness stand to say.”
As expected, defense attorneys accused Fratianno of being a “mouth for hire,” willing to smear any defendant so he could continue hiding in WITSEC and pocketing rewards. “The truth is, we were buying his testimony to some degree,” said McPherson. “I know the Justice Department will deny it, but it was what we did. But how else would we ever get inside the LCN?”
Despite the strict guidelines and policies that Safir implemented after he became WITSEC chief in 1978, Fratianno proved that all witnesses may be equal, but some were more equal than others. To this day, he remains the one who wrung more special favors out of the Marshals Service than any other known WITSEC witness. It paid all of his telephone bills for several years, sent monthly subsistence checks to his mother-in-law, and paid for a facelift, capped teeth, and even breast implants for Jean. “He was an expert at manipulating the system,” said McPherson. “I saw Fratianno turn U.S. marshals against one another, turn the Marshals Service against the Justice Department, turn the Justice Department against U.S. attorneys, turn FBI agents against prosecutors. He nearly always
got what he wanted, and he made more money milking WITSEC than he ever did committing crimes.”
Over the years, Shur received dozens of calls from Fratianno asking for money. “He’d ask for things I often felt were unreasonable,” he recalled. “You’ve got to keep in mind, he had been a crime boss, and now he was dependent on the government for assistance,” said Shur. “I believe that in his own mind, he felt he was no longer a free man and wanted to be compensated for his loss of freedom. It also was a game to him. He needed to believe that he was getting away with a scam, forcing us to cross a line.”
Fratianno was so prickly to deal with that Safir assigned Marilyn Mode, his special assistant at the Marshals Service’s WITSEC operations headquarters, to personally handle Fratianno’s demands. She and McPherson, who continued to deal with Fratianno in the field, worked as a tag team. “I used to refer to Fratianno’s calls as ‘Jimmy’s daily screams,’ ” Mode recalled. The fact that Safir had put a “broad” in charge of him irked the mobster, but the choice proved to be a smart move. Because of Fratianno’s macho attitude, he hated looking weak or dependent in front of Mode, and she was able to rein in his hysterics.
McPherson saw Fratianno break down emotionally only once. The gangster’s first wife, Jewel Switzer, was dying of cancer in 1980, and Fratianno begged McPherson to let him visit her. Fratianno had first met Jewel when she was eighteen years old and working in Las Vegas as a hat check girl. They married a few weeks later, but he had been put in prison shortly after the ceremony, and her parents had forced her to divorce him even though she was pregnant with their baby. Seven years later, when Fratianno was released, he and Jewel were remarried. They had stayed together for sixteen
years, until she wearied of his womanizing and divorced him. McPherson was convinced that Jewel was the only woman Fratianno had ever truly loved. But the timing of her illness couldn’t have been worse. He was about to testify in another big case. NBC News,
60 Minutes
, and
20/20
had all scheduled posttrial interviews with him.
Newsweek
had paid him $2,500 for an exclusive interview, and his first book was about to be published. “The mob really wanted him dead,” McPherson said. “We knew of several hit men trying to find him, and when I asked Safir about letting Fratianno see her, he said, ‘No way!’ We couldn’t afford to have any slipups and end up with him being killed.”
“You can’t go see Jewel,” McPherson told Fratianno. “Safir refuses to approve it.”
“Fuck Safir,” Fratianno erupted. “Fuck this program. Fuck this whole deal. Bud, my wife is dying. She’s not going to make it. My daughter is hysterical. I haven’t seen my grandkids in years.” Fratianno became teary-eyed. “I really have to go. You got to let me go!”
McPherson noticed that Fratianno had referred to Jewel as his “wife” even though they were divorced and he was now married to Jean. The next morning, McPherson arranged for an armored car to drive Fratianno to a private airfield, where an airplane took Fratianno to the city where Jewel was hospitalized. Another armored car drove him there. They were together about an hour, during which McPherson nervously paced the hallways. Four days later, she died. McPherson had risked his job to help Fratianno. He had not told Safir about the secret visit, but Fratianno never said a word of thanks.
“When Fratianno’s role as a witness began to come to an end,” Shur recalled, “I let it be known that I expected him to be terminated from subsistence. He
didn’t take the news well.” McPherson had tried to prepare him, but the mobster didn’t believe the government would ever stop giving him money for his rent and food. “None of the really major witnesses ever believed we’d let them go,” said McPherson. “They thought they were so important they’d get checks forever. I’d seen the same thing happen with Vinnie Teresa. I used to whisper in his ear all the time: ‘Vinnie, when you get off that witness stand and the government doesn’t need you anymore, you aren’t going to have as many friends as you do now.’ I told him we had to begin thinking about his future, but he was just like Jimmy. They all think they are indispensable.”
Fratianno had been in WITSEC for five years when Shur and Safir first tried to ease him out. Fratianno reacted by flying with his attorney to Washington, D.C., and going over both men’s heads by appealing directly to Stephen Trott, an assistant attorney general.
“We’re not treating you any differently from any other witness,” Shur told Fratianno during a hastily called meeting.
“Well, you should treat me different,” he replied, “because I am not like ninety-eight percent of the bums in your program. I’m too old to get a job, and I don’t want to go on welfare.”
Shur tried to point out that WITSEC subsistence was akin to a welfare program, but the gangster didn’t buy it. “I have given you plenty for my help,” he declared. “You owe me!” By the time the meeting ended, Trott decided that Fratianno would be kept on subsistence for two more years. In effect, Fratianno had negotiated himself a yearly salary of $33,477 tax-free, plus a lump-sum payment of $11,300 to help pay a wide range of his personal expenses, including his auto insurance,
real estate taxes, and the cost of gasoline for his car. The Justice Department also agreed to resettle him anywhere inside the United States as long as the Marshals Service and Shur felt it safe. Fratianno chose a hillside outside the tiny Montana town of Bellingham. He built a $190,000 house there, with a 55-by-20-foot grand hall. Every room had a color TV hooked to a satellite dish because Fratianno loved to watch professional football games. There was a huge crystal chandelier in the grand hall and original artwork. He got the government to pay the $400 sewer connection. Fratianno asked McPherson to move Jean to Montana from Brunswick, Georgia, where she had been in hiding. Fratianno was now seventy-three and beginning to show early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. It finally looked as if he was settling down. But McPherson knew better. “Jimmy was going to be hustling until the day he dropped dead.”
Sure enough, Fratianno was back in the news in a matter of weeks. Without telling WITSEC, he had given an exclusive interview to Thames Television in Britain in exchange for a hefty cash payment and a promise that the show would never be broadcast in the United States. He didn’t think anyone would find out, but the Thames network sold the show to a Canadian network, and on Thanksgiving Day in 1985 Fratianno got top billing on a segment called “Murder Inc.” Many of Fratianno’s Montana neighbors watched Canadian channels because they lived close to the border, and his alias was blown. A furious Safir sent McPherson to haul Fratianno into Washington for a dressing-down.
“We’re going to have to move you again, Jimmy,” Safir snapped. “Only this time, we’re cutting back your subsistence because you violated the rules.”
“You can’t do that!” Fratianno yelled. “I won’t be
able to make my house payments.” Fratianno demanded to see Trott again, but his secretary told the gangster that Safir was now calling the shots. For two weeks, Fratianno holed up in a hotel, calling FBI agents and federal prosecutors for support, but it didn’t do any good. He returned to Montana depressed, and on December 31, 1985, Safir sent McPherson to tell him that the checks were finally coming to an end. McPherson assured him that he would be okay financially. He was being paid book royalties and had invested wisely.
Jean left him a week later. She had quietly contacted Safir and arranged to be relocated. Fratianno had no clue she was leaving nor where she had gone. Now alone, he called McPherson. “This ain’t over, Bud. Trust me, I’m just starting to fight.” During the next few weeks, he waged a one-man telephone campaign to get back onto WITSEC’s subsistence rolls, and he finally won. Shur and Safir were told to take him back for two more years after Fratianno persuaded an assistant U.S. attorney in New York to add his name to the list of witnesses scheduled to testify against Carmine “the Snake” Persico, who by then had become the boss of the Colombo crime family.
Safir ordered McPherson to relocate Fratianno in a place where no one would know him, so McPherson chose the U.S. Virgin Islands. Fratianno lasted there only one month. He complained there was nothing to watch on television because the island had only one channel. McPherson resettled him in Corpus Christi, Texas. As before, when Fratianno’s two-year extension was near an end, McPherson was sent to cut him loose.
“Jimmy, you’ve had ten years in the program, more than anyone else,” McPherson said. “It’s been a good long ride, but it is over.” Fratianno called a reporter at the
Los Angeles Times
to complain. “The government
threw me out on the street,” he said. “I put thirty guys away, six of them bosses, and now the whole world’s looking for me. They just get finished using you and they throw you out on the street.” A Justice Department spokesman responded that Fratianno had received nearly a million dollars in support payments during his ten years as a witness.
“It was sad, but it was over for him,” McPherson said. Three years later, McPherson retired, and two years after that, in 1993, Fratianno died alone in his sleep inside his Montana house. The government had told reporters Fratianno had sold the house, but he hadn’t. He had been living there almost as a hermit.
“When Fratianno’s first book,
The Last Mafioso
, came out, he sent me a copy as a gift,” Shur recalled. “To make sure he knew where I stood, I sent him a money order for the fifteen-dollar price of the book. It may seem like a small thing, but I didn’t want to be indebted to him, even for fifteen bucks. You had to understand that when you dealt with someone like Jimmy, there were no idle conversations, no real gifts, no free favors, and that was true up to the moment he died. A racketeer said to me once, ‘Shur, I don’t always like what you say, but I know what you say is so.’ When you dealt with a witness like Jimmy, you had to understand that it was your reputation for integrity that made him respect you, even though he was trying to corrupt you every step of the way.”
A
round the same time that Jimmy the Weasel first began to cooperate with FBI agents, a vicious murder inside a federal penitentiary prompted Shur to expand the WITSEC program in a new direction. The change was set into motion one afternoon in 1978, when a bus carrying William Zambito and twenty-one other prisoners arrived at the maximum-security penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. Zambito was a state prisoner who had provided information to Miami prosecutors about Florida drug dealers. In exchange, his own prison sentence for drug peddling had been shortened. Although he was not a federal prisoner, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) had agreed to hide him in one of its facilities because inmates in state prisons in Florida were threatening to kill him. He was en route to a federal facility in the southwest when the bus stopped for the night.