Almost Initiated Into Mafia, Ex-FBI Agent Tells Senators

A former FBI agent told senators today that he almost became the first bureau member initiated into La Cosa Nostra, but his six-year undercover assignment was ended abruptly during a gangster civil war.

Joseph D. Pistone said he would have become a “made” member of New York City’s Bonanno family in December, 1981, but he was pulled out of the mob by his FBI superiors after he was ordered to kill a gangster from a rival faction.

“The FBI felt--and so did I--that this was a good time for getting out, because everybody was being killed,” Pistone said.

But for a brief time, Pistone said, he sought permission to continue the assignment so he could make FBI history.

FBI spokeswoman Kathy Bradford said that to this day, no agent has ever penetrated deep enough into a mob family to be a “made” member rather than an associate.

Pistone testified from behind a screen before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The panel’s chairman, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), said the retired agent has been relocated from New York and changed his appearance.

Pistone, who wrote a book about his life as gangster Donnie Brasco, said the New York mob was so upset when it learned his real identity, that some of his former allies were murdered, and new rules were instituted to thwart future undercover penetrations.