90 year old Raab is said to have died in Manhattan due to intestinal complications.

An amazing journalist. Although he is best known for his "Five Families" book,Raab also was a crusader who was instrumental in obtaining wrongful imprisonment
dismissals in both the Whitmore rape case and the "Hurricane" Carter murder convictions. The TV Series "Kojak" was based on his work.

He seemed like a know-nothing to me. Very overrated, whatever he was told to say about the mob he said. He also just regurgated things form older books for Five Families. As for Rubin Carter, he was guilty, his conviction should never have been overturned. Even Bob Dylan, after moaning in his song about Carter, later said he was sorry he worth the song. If Raab got him out he did a disservice to society. I am not familiar with the Whitmore rape case so I will not comment on that one.

His huge Five Families book is great every once in a while I pick it up.

Rest in Peace

Baruch Ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech HaOlam, Dayan HaEmet. Blessed are you God, King of the Universe, the True Judge.

Dylan never apologized or recanted his work on "Hurricane".

In fact he re-mixed, it modifying the lyrics to placate Columbia records lawyers.

They worried about the phrase"robbed the bodies" being applied to Bello and Bradley.
They were never accused of those acts.

Other than that,Dylan continued to perform the song in concert until the end of the Rolling Thunder Review.
He cited both the length and technical aspects for not continuing to play it,as well as his belief that the song had served it's purpose.

Also occasionally go back to Five Families, legendary book in the genre from a great expert in OC. Rest in Peace.

Geez, even if you don't like his work, let the man RIP and keep your fucking comments to yourself if you have nothing nice to say.

His 5 Families book probably was overrated, but he made it interesting. That book just looks awesome, design, title, subtitle, format. I can imagine people not even interested in the subject being drawn to it. That's what those "older books" couldn't do.

Among many other things, "The Five Families" presented the first understandable description of the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization Act (RICO), and how it could be applied to OC. Excellent description of how Rudy Giuliani , then US Attorney for the Southern District of NY, used Joe Bonanno's description of the Commission in his autobiography, as the starting point for his famous Commission Case--the first large, successful prosecution of Mafia Dons. After that, US Attorneys all over the country were falling all over themselves to share in the glory by bringing RICO cases against the Mob.

RIP

Unless you were a family member or his friend, how about you shutting up. He seemed like a creep.

The FBI (Hoover) knew about Cosa Nostra way before Valachi came around.

The FBI has traditionally accepted July 26, 1908 as its birth date.

In 1974, Raab became a metropolitan staff reporter for The New York Times where he covered criminal justice and government corruption stories, particularly those that involved the American Mafia. During this period, he exposed perjured testimony and police and prosecutorial misconduct surrounding the triple murder convictions of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and his co-defendant, John Artis, which led to the ultimate dismissal of all accusations against them. Both men were cleared after serving lengthy prison sentences.

Raab helped at least 2 Balck men get out of prison, I believe Carter was guilty. The thing about Raab that I just realized is he spent his career never questioning allegations or convictions of anyone alleged to be a Mafia member. If he was told it, he printed it. A flunky for the prosecution, or just biased? He may have written a thousand stories about indictments and convictions of White people, yet never questioned even one of them, If anyone can show such a case, I'll be wrong. I doubt it can be shown.

When the move about Carter came out, different groups of people contested the film, all saying they had been the ones who had fought to get Carter out of prison. I don;t think the movie mentioned Raab. He may have covered all the hype about Carter being innocent, and joined the chorus of people asking for him to be free, but he was not instrumental in the case at all.

I still believe Carter was wrongly convicted and in the US thousands of people have been wrongly convicted.

Any thoughts of Carter being innocent are non sense. He was a violent angry guy seeking revenge for a few black men killed just before he committed murder. He was released for technicalities and political reasons not innocence.