Frank Ragano
| Frank Ragano | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 25, 1923 Ybor City, Florida, U.S. |
| Died | May 13, 1998 (aged 75) Tampa, Florida, U.S. |
| Occupation | criminal defense lawyer |
| Years active | 1952-1990 |
Frank Ragano (January 25, 1923 – May 13, 1998) was a self-styled "mob lawyer" from Florida, who made his name representing organized crime figures such as Santo Trafficante, Jr. and Carlos Marcello, and also served as lawyer for Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa. In his 1994 autobiography Mob Lawyer, Ragano recounted his career in defending members of organized crime, and made the controversial allegation that Florida mob boss Santo Trafficante, Jr. confessed to him shortly before he died in 1987 that he and Carlos Marcello had arranged for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. These Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories have been called into serious question by others.
Born in Ybor City, Tampa, Florida to Sicilian parents, Ragano attended Stetson Law School and clerked for the Florida Supreme Court before admission to the Florida Bar in 1952 and beginning his trial practice in Tampa, Florida. In 1954 he was recruited by another attorney to represent several defendants arrested in Tampa for involvement in Santo Trafficante, Jr.'s illegal bolita operations. He immediately befriended Trafficante, who thereafter admitted him into the inner circles of Florida's organized crime scene.
Ragano became a frequent visitor to Trafficante's Havana nightclubs. During one such visit, Trafficante told Ragano that in 1957 he and others had set up then Senator John F. Kennedy in a Havana hotel room with several prostitutes, and that Trafficante rued the day he had failed to preserve the moment in secret surveillance tapes that could have been used for bribery purposes.
In 1959, after Fidel Castro overthrew the Fulgencio Batista regime in Cuba, Trafficante's casinos were closed down and he was imprisoned by the new government. Ragano worked on various attempts to free Trafficante, who was released in early 1960 and returned to the United States.
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