William F. Roemer, Jr.

William F. Roemer Jr. (June 16, 1926 – June 14, 1996)

During World War II, he served as a Private (1st Class) in the U.S. Marine Corps. He attended University of Notre Dame for a legal career. While there, he became an amateur boxer, and was nicknamed "Zip" for his skills. a disgraced former cop turned mafioso, was one of those. With his efforts, he helped the Feds put away Outfit bosses like Sam "Teets" Bataglia and Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio within a year of their rise to leadership. Roemer also tried over a period of time to "flip" Outfit "hitman" Charles "Chuckie" Nicoletti, to no avail. Roemer was indirectly related to the death of William "Action" Jackson who was the victim of a grisly gangland murder after Roemer was observed trying to make Jackson an informant and the Chicago Outfit suspected him of snitching.

Roemer relocated to Arizona and was assigned to Joe Bonanno, and helped the FBI convict him. Roemer mentions how he had to go through Bonanno's trash to obtain torn pieces of paper written by Bonanno outlining his daily agenda and having to wiretap the different phone booths Bonanno used to relay his messages.

Retirement and later life During retirement Roemer was an Arizona neighbor with New York City mobster Joe Bonanno. In the 1996 HBO movie Sugartime Roemer appears as a CIA agent who recruits Sam Giancana to assist the U.S. in killing Fidel Castro. That is artistic license because Roemer worked for the FBI, not the CIA, and that is not how the CIA recruited the Mafia. The movie Sugartime is based on Roemer's 1989 book, Man Against the Mob.

He was interviewed for the 1988 Jack Anderson documentary American Expose: Who Killed JFK?. On June 14, 1996, two days before his 70th birthday, William F. Roemer Jr. died of natural causes at his home in Tucson, Arizona. Roemer, William F. Jr. (1990) War of the Godfathers: The Bloody Confrontation Between the Chicago and New York Families for the Control of Las Vegas, New York: D.I. Fine, Roemer, William F. Jr. (1994) The Enforcer: Spilotro, The Chicago Mob’s Man Over Las Vegas, New York : D.I. Fine, Roemer, William F. Jr. (1995) Accardo: The Genuine Godfather, New York : D.I. Fine, Roemer, William F. Jr. (1994) Mob Power Plays: The Mob Attempts Control of Congress, Casinos, and Baseball