11 other New York Mafia leaders, after a previous indictment on a second set of racketeering charges as part of the Mafia Commission Trial. Prosecutors aimed to strike at all the crime families at once using their involvement in the commission. According to Colombo hitman and FBI informant Gregory Scarpa, Persico and Gambino boss John Gotti backed a plan to kill the lead prosecutor, and future New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani in late 1986, but it was rejected by the rest of the commission. Life imprisonment Colombo and Commission trials At the start of the commission trial Persico decided to serve as his own lawyer. He believed that his history of convictions gave him sufficient experience to defend himself. His co-defendants vehemently disagreed with this decision, and the judge warned Persico that he would be waiving "incompetent counsel" as the grounds for an appeal. Persico received counsel from lawyers to help guide him when the prosecutors questioned him. He tried to project a friendly image to the jury and urged them to put aside any preconceptions about "the Mafia" or "Cosa Nostra". Many believe that Persico inadvertently sabotaged his own defense by acknowledging criminal activities during his cross-examinations of prosecution witnesses. On June 14, 1986, Persico was convicted of racketeering in the Colombo Trial. On November 17, he was sentenced to 39 years in prison. The sentencing judge, John F. Keenan, nonetheless praised Persico's performance as his own lawyer in the commission trial and said, "Mr. Persico, you're a tragedy. You are one of the most intelligent people I have ever seen in my life." On November 19, Persico and the other commission trial defendants were convicted on all charges. On January 13, 1987, Keenan sentenced Persico to 100 years in prison, to run consecutively with his 39-year sentence in the Colombo trial, a $240,000 fine, and given no option for parole. The New York Times organized crime writer Selwyn Raab thought the Colombos were the most damaged by the trial, even though most of the top leaders of New York's Mafia families were sent to prison, with the Luccheses losing their entire hierarchy. In his book Five Families, Raab noted that Persico was only 53 years old at the time of the commission trial, making him by far the youngest boss in New York. However, Raab noted, Persico had already led the family for 14 years and was "at