Giuliani Tracker

Newsweek: Giuliani Shaped by a Family of Cops and Hoods

MYFOXNY.COM -- Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani has earned a reputation as a hard-nosed law enforcer from his years as a federal prosecutor who put mobsters behind bars and his two terms as mayor of New York City, which saw a huge decline in violent crimes.

But his career in law enforcement was undoubtedly informed by his childhood in Brooklyn and on Long Island. His connection to a number of police officers -- good and bad -- and his exposure early on to a Catholic culture with a strict moral code are examined in an extended investigative profile in Newsweek.

Four of Giuliani's uncles were police officers, as were four of his cousins. But he also had family members who skirted the line of the law, such as uncle Leo D'Avanzo, a loan shark and a bookie with mob connections. Giuliani's cousin Lewis D'Avanzo did time for armed hijacking and selling stolen cars. And Giuliani's father, Harold Giuliani, was a wannabe boxer who served more than a year behind bars for mugging the milkman, according to a biography. Although Rudy Giuliani has said he knew little of his father's life.

Giuliani's most recent association with a tough but tainted cop is of course Bernard Kerik, who served as both correction commissioner and police commissioner. Kerik, who is under federal indictment on corruption and tax evasion charges, has long denied wrongdoing or any connection to organized crime. Giuliani's relationship with Kerik could cost him on the campaign trail as Rudy tries to present himself in as the presidential candidate who will be tough on terrorism and crime, Newsweek reports.

LINK - NEWSWEEK: GROWING UP GIULIANI

LINK - VILLAGE VOICE: GIULIANI'S FIVE BIG LIES ABOUT 9/11

LINK - TIME: PERSON OF THE YEAR 2001

Mob Bosses Discussed Killing Giuliani in 1986

NEW YORK (AP) -- The bosses of New York's five Mafia families discussed killing Rudy Giuliani in 1986 when he was a mob-busting federal prosecutor, according to testimony Wednesday 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 lead 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 five families in the so-called "Commission" trial.  Giuliani is now a GOP presidential hopeful.

In testimony Wednesday, 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 materialized.

Scarpa had a colorful 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 U.S. history. At his request, the trial is being heard by a judge and not a jury.

Prosecutors say Scarpa showered DeVecchio with cash, stolen jewelry, 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.

Information from: Newsday, http://www.newsday.com

Rudy Giuliani Wants Statistics to Battle Problems

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has a ready answer for the nation's woes: statistics.

Iraq-stat. Border-stat. Energy-stat. In numerous campaign appearances and debates, the word "stat" -- short for statistics -- has become a catchword for the former New York mayor, who argues that his use of statistics to fight urban crime can help solve national problems such as illegal immigration and port security.

Crime dropped by half, and murders dropped by two-thirds, while Giuliani was mayor of New York in the 1990s, facts he attributes to a system of mapping crime patterns and making police commanders responsible for reducing crime.

Called Compstat -- short for computerized statistics -- the program was copied throughout the New York government and by several other cities.

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Giuliani Calls for Crime-Tracker for Border Security

Rudy Giuliani said Thursday if he is elected president, he would employ a version of a crime-measurement system that he used as mayor of New York City to tighten U.S. border security, track down terrorism cells and improve the performances of federal agencies.

 

Giuliani's CompStat system is widely credited with lowering the city's crime rate by more than half during his eight years as mayor. He later expanded the program to help reduce jail violence and to lower the number of city residents receiving welfare benefits.

"What I'm going to do when I become president is I'm going to use that program to secure our borders," he said during a speech at the Police Officers Association of Michigan's annual convention. "If we did the same thing with our borders that we did with crime in New York City, we could stop people from coming into this country illegally by having a `BorderStat' program."

Each week, police personnel in New York City compile statistics on crime complaints and arrest activities. The data is used to detect crime trends and adjust policing strategies accordingly.

The Republican said CompStat was instrumental in the city's 56 percent drop in overall crime while he was mayor. A version of the system used by its Department of Correction resulted in a 90 percent drop in jail violence, while another variation employed by its Department of Social Services reduced the number of welfare recipients from 1.1 million to 640,000.