Word: masselli
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...records of Jo-Pel and Schiavone were subpoenaed by the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, Republican Robert B. Fiske Jr., with FBI cooperation, but this probe produced no legal action. Fiske's successor, Democrat John S. Martin Jr., obtained guilty pleas from Masselli and Orlando for hijacking and conspiring to manufacture synthetic cocaine. After Ronald Reagan won the 1980 election and announced in December that he wanted Donovan as his Labor Secretary, FBI officials in both New York and Washington seemed to lose interest in the Schiavone evidence...
...fact that Donovan had been cited in the Masselli wiretaps apparently did not even reach the FBI's Washington headquarters promptly. When Edwin Meese, a top Reagan transition adviser, asked FBI Director William Webster in December 1980 whether the FBI had any information linking Donovan to organized crime, Webster responded, "I know of nothing to hold up the nomination at this time." The director wrote a memo saying that the FBI's 59 field offices had run checks on Donovan with no negative findings. In fact, no such national FBI survey had been made...
...York FBI agents that the Schiavone company was "mobbed up" and claimed that Donovan had been "acquainted" with mobsters on both "a business and social basis." This information was relayed to FBI headquarters on Jan. 8 and Jan. 10,1981. So was one comment about Donovan from the Masselli wiretaps. On Jan. 11, all this was passed on to Fred Fielding, a Meese aide who is now White House counsel. But neither Meese, Fielding nor Webster told the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee about the derogatory information before Donovan's confirmation hearings began...
After TIME and the Washington Post revealed the existence of the Masselli wiretaps and reported that the FBI had withheld information from the Senate committee, a flurry of investigations began. Special Prosecutor Silverman was appointed. The Senate committee probed the FBI'S mishandling of the case. Meanwhile, the Schiavone company hired its own detectives to find out who was leaking information about Donovan and the company. The private detectives even secretly recorded conversations in offices of the Senate committee's staff...
Silverman interviewed Orlando but apparently doubted his credibility. Edward McDonald, chief of a federal strike force that had been unable to gain access to the tapes, decided to turn Orlando over to Merola. By then, the Bronx D.A. had secured convictions of two gangsters in the slaying of Masselli's son Nat, who had been cooperating with Silverman. At the 1983 trial, Bronx Assistant District Attorney Martin Fisher claimed that young Masselli had been killed in order "to help and protect" the Schiavone company and Donovan...