AP News, April 9th, 2007
Rudy Giuliani's office prosecuted a number of high-profile cases during his time as U.S. attorney in Manhattan in the 1980s:
THE MOB
Three of five leaders accused of being the "ruling body" of New York's five organized crime families were each sentenced in a single day to 100 years in prison after a prosecution that Giuliani said would help dismantle the mob. A fourth leader was later convicted and imprisoned. The fifth mob boss, was acquitted at three trials in Brooklyn and Manhattan before he was convicted of racketeering in federal court in Manhattan in 1992. He died in prison a decade later.
PIZZA CONNECTION
The "pizza connection" trial resulted in the conviction of 18 defendants for participating in a Mafia-backed drug racket operated through pizza parlors. The ring imported an estimated $1.6 billion worth of heroin into the United States. The case began Sept. 30, 1985, and ended 17 months later with 18 convictions and one acquittal. It was one of the longest criminal cases in federal court history.
INSIDER TRADING
Dennis Levine, a mergers executive, pleaded guilty to charges of securities fraud, tax evasion, and perjury and was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $362,000.
Takeover stocks speculator Ivan Boesky was given a lenient sentence of three years in prison and fined $100 million in exchange for cooperation with investigators. The probe led to the prosecution of Michael Milken, a powerful financier who almost single-handedly created the high-yield bond market and was a controlling force in the 1980s takeover boom. He served two years of a 10-year prison term.
MARCOS
Former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, were indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on racketeering charges, which alleged they plundered their homeland of hundreds of millions of dollars and defrauded U.S. banks. "No one is above the law," Giuliani said. Ferdinand Marcos died in 1989. Imelda Marcos was acquitted in 1990.
THE HELMSLEYS
Giuliani's office brought tax charges against real estate and hotel moguls Harry and Leona Helmsley. They were indicted on state and federal charges of evading taxes by disguising $4 million in renovations to their Greenwich, Conn., mansion as business expenses and taking bogus tax deductions.
NEW YORK CITY CORRUPTION
Giuliani personally prosecuted the case against Bronx Democratic boss Stanley Friedman and four co-defendants for a scheme to get a $22.7 million Parking Violations Bureau contract for hand-held computers through a pattern of racketeering. Friedman was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
TEAMSTERS
Calling it "a major American scandal" of Mafia domination of organized labor, Giuliani filed a civil racketeering lawsuit to force reforms on the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The lawsuit resulted in a historic settlement which called for the nation's biggest union to hold elections with secret ballots with three court-appointed watchdogs to oversee the Teamsters for several years and to rid the union of mob influence.
