Patrick Semansky/AP
- Rudy Giuliani gained notoriety as a prosecutor for going after New York City mafias in the 1980s.
- Recently, he was indicted on RICO charges — the same prosecutorial tool he used to take down mafias.
- A lawyer who represented prominent New York mobsters said his clients are "fucking thrilled."
Some mobsters are elated to hear that Rudy Giuliani is getting hit with RICO charges — the same prosecutorial tool he used to go after New York City's most notorious mafiosos in the 1980s as a federal prosecutor.
Giuliani was indicted on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act charges late Monday along with former President Donald Trump and his allies over allegations of efforts to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results.
The news of Giuliani's indictment has apparently brought cause for celebration for some of his former targets while he was a US attorney.
Defense attorney Murray Richman, who represented members of the Genovese and Lucchese crime families, told The Messenger that some of his clients are "thrilled" at the news of Giuliani's indictment.
"I don't want to say the language, but they really ripped Rudy a new a------," he told the outlet.
Criminal defense lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman, who represented the notorious head of the Gambino crime family, John Gotti, also told The Messenger that his clients are "laughing now."
"I'm thrilled that Rudy will now experience what it feels like to be on the wrong end of a RICO prosecution — with a mandatory five years in prison facing him," Lichtman said to The Messenger.
In 1986, Giuliani scored a major victory in his prosecutorial career after eight members of La Cosa Nostra were convicted in a racketeering trial.
''The verdict reached today has resulted in dismantling the ruling council of La Cosa Nostra,'' Giuliani's office said in a statement at the time.
In a statement to Insider, Ted Goodman, an advisor to Giuliani said: "Rudy Giuliani fearlessly took down the once-untouchable Mafia, cleaned up the streets of New York City and comforted the nation following 9/11, while the career criminals Murray Richmond and Jeffrey Lichtman say are now celebrating his indictment, represent some of the worst members of society, having earned their living at the expense of honest hardworking people through extortion, intimidation, violence, and murder."
Not all ex-mobsters are cheering on the recent indictment.
John Alite, a former hitman for the Gambino crime family, recently told Insider that the chargers were "disgusting."
"How can you charge these guys like you charged somebody like myself when I was a criminal?" Alite, a Trump supporter, asked.
Alite added: "These guys didn't make bad choices. These guys made pro-America choices."
Richman told The Messenger that a lot of his clients "love Trump."
"They freaking love Trump," he said. "But all of them are almost unified in their position of hating f——— Rudy," Richman said.
Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who witnessed Giuliani's political rise in the city, also chimed in and told Politico that the indictment was "more than Shakespearean."
"That same creativity and entrepreneurship led him down a very dangerous path, which was the perp walks and the marrying of his job with his self-obsession and political ambition," de Blasio told the outlet of Giuliani.