"As the principal drafter of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as RICO, Mr. Blakey provided law enforcement with a broad new legal framework to target organized crime, public corruption, white-collar offenses and almost any other kind of complex criminal activity. Used in conjunction with a federal wiretap act that was also drafted with help from Mr. Blakey, RICO "allowed prosecutors to render the mob unrecognizable," said Ronald Goldstock, the former director of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force."
"Mr. Blakey could hardly be mistaken for Eliot Ness. A renowned law professor who taught thousands of students at Notre Dame and Cornell, he spent years arguing and consulting on RICO cases and helping to shape the next generation of lawyers. But he also drew on his experience dealing with arcane legal problems, uncooperative witnesses and alleged criminal conspiracies to delve into one of the 20th century's most consequential murder cases: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, whose younger brother Robert F. Kennedy was Mr. Blakey's onetime boss in the Justice Department."
"Mr. Blakey, who served as the staff director and chief counsel of the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations - an investigative body that concluded in 1979 that John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were each the likely victim of a conspiracy - died May 1 in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois. He was 90, and had lived there in recent years with his son John Robert Blakey, a federal judge and former prosecutor with years of experience arguing and deciding RICO cases of his own."
G. Robert Blakey was a leading opponent of organized crime who helped create the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). As principal drafter, he provided law enforcement with a broad legal framework to target organized crime, public corruption, white-collar offenses, and complex criminal activity. RICO, used alongside a federal wiretap act he helped draft, enabled prosecutors to dismantle major criminal organizations. Blakey was also a renowned law professor who taught at Notre Dame and Cornell and advised on RICO cases. His legal work extended to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, including service as staff director and chief counsel for the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, which concluded in 1979 that both John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were likely victims of conspiracy.
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