U.S. Says It Paid Him $1 Million : ‘Jimmy the Weasel’ Loses Witness Protection Funds

The Justice Department is cutting off financial support for Aladena (Jimmy the Weasel) Fratianno, the highest-paid participant in the history of the federal witness protection program, ending 10 years of subsistence that totaled nearly $1 million, officials announced Thursday.

Fratianno’s value as a witness “is diminishing,” department spokesman John Russell noted, saying that “it’s just time to terminate” payments for the self-described hit man and one-time acting boss of a Los Angeles Mafia family.

During its decade of support for Fratianno, who testified as a government witness in several organized-crime trials, the Justice Department paid $951,326 for his rent, utilities and other subsistence for him and his wife, as well as auto and household insurance and real estate taxes for two homes and a condominium in which he held interests, Russell said.

At one point, according to a government source, Fratianno even sought federal reimbursement for the cleaning and glazing of his wife’s mink jackets and the cost of her nicotine withdrawal treatments. Those requests were turned down.

The government is ending Fratianno’s subsidies, effective today, so that the witness protection program “can’t be construed as a pension fund for aging mobsters,” Russell said.

“We think he can live as any other 74-year-old man,” Russell said. He noted that Fratianno is eligible for Social Security payments and just had his second book published.

Russell emphasized that Fratianno is still covered by the witness protection program, saying that he has recently been relocated for at least the second time and has been given another new identity.

Although “he was never under 24-hour protection,” Fratianno is covered by the U.S. Marshals Service whenever he enters “danger areas,” Russell said.

Fratianno’s cutoff was first disclosed by States News Service, which quoted him as saying that the government’s action left him “a dead man. They just threw me out on the . . . street. I put 30 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 on the street.”

“We weren’t going to announce it,” Russell said, noting that the department does not ordinarily disclose actions involving the sensitive witness program.

Gerald Shur, who heads the department’s witness protection program, said that about 10 individuals who had been in the program had been killed, all after they left of their own volition. He said the program has lost no one who adhered to the rules.

Extension Expires

Russell said that the government had been trying since 1983 to end Fratianno’s subsistence, but that Associate Atty. Gen. Stephen S. Trott agreed to a two-year extension in 1985. That extension has expired.

“He has given great service to the country and law enforcement,” Russell said, “but the program exists to protect witnesses, not as a vehicle for reward.”

Fratianno’s lawyer, Dennis D. McDonald, disputed the Justice Department’s estimate of $1 million in subsistence payments to the informant.

“That figure is ridiculous,” McDonald told the Associated Press in a telephone interview from his Hayward, Calif., office, adding that his client has been paid about $600 a month.

McDonald said the cutoff of government money would force Fratianno to look for a job, but it would be risky for him to try to earn a living because he could be recognized, in part because of his books and television appearances.

“I think it puts his life in great jeopardy,” McDonald said.

In 1980, Fratianno testified in Los Angeles at the trial of five reputed Mafia figures that he had decided to become a government witness when he became convinced that Southern California mob figures had marked him for death. During the trial, Fratianno casually admitted that he had directly committed five murders and taken part in six others.

Testifies Frequently

Fratianno became one of the most frequently used witnesses at mob-related trials throughout the country, testifying in 1983 at the bribery conspiracy trial of former Teamster President Roy L. Williams and, most recently, at the racketeering trial of Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno, reputed boss of the Genovese crime family.

At the Salerno trial in May, Fratianno said Teamsters President Jackie Presser had told him in the 1970s that “he was not going to make a move unless James Licavoli gave him the OK.” Licavoli at that time was a Mafia boss in Cleveland.