thumb|Giuliani as U.S. Attorney in 1984, as photographed by Bernard Gotfryd In the Mafia Commission Trial, which ran from February 25, 1985, through November 19, 1986, Giuliani indicted eleven organized crime figures, including the heads of New York City's so-called "Five Families", under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act on charges including extortion, labor racketeering, and murder for hire. Time magazine called this "case of cases" possibly "the most significant assault on the infrastructure of organized crime since the high command of the Chicago Mafia was swept away in 1943", and quoted Giuliani's stated intention: "Our approach is to wipe out the five families." Gambino crime family boss Paul Castellano evaded conviction when he and his underboss Thomas Bilotti were murdered on the streets of midtown Manhattan on December 16, 1985. However, three heads of the Five Families were sentenced to 100 years in prison on January 13, 1987. Genovese and Colombo leaders, Tony Salerno and Carmine Persico, received additional sentences in separate trials, with 70-year and 39-year sentences to run consecutively. He was assisted by three Assistant United States Attorneys: Michael Chertoff, the eventual second United States Secretary of Homeland Security and co-author of the Patriot Act; John Savarese, now a partner at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz; and Gil Childers, a later deputy chief of the criminal division for the Southern District of New York and now managing director in the legal department at Goldman Sachs.
thumb|Giuliani as U.S. Attorney in 1984, as photographed by Bernard Gotfryd In the Mafia Commission Trial which ran from February 25, 1985, through November 19, 1986, Giuliani indicted eleven organized crime figures, including the heads of New York City's so-called "Five Families", under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act on charges including extortion, labor racketeering, and murder for hire. Time magazine called this "case of cases" possibly "the most significant assault on the infrastructure of organized crime since the high command of the Chicago Mafia was swept away in 1943", and quoted Giuliani's stated intention: "Our approach is to wipe out the five families." Gambino crime family boss Paul Castellano evaded conviction when he and his underboss Thomas Bilotti were murdered on the streets of midtown Manhattan on December 16, 1985. However, three heads of the Five Families were sentenced to 100 years in prison on January 13, 1987. Genovese and Colombo leaders, Tony Salerno and Carmine Persico, received additional sentences in separate trials, with 70-year and 39-year sentences to run consecutively. He was assisted by three Assistant United States Attorneys: Michael Chertoff, the eventual second United States Secretary of Homeland Security and co-author of the Patriot Act; John Savarese, now a partner at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz; and Gil Childers, a later deputy chief of the criminal division for the Southern District of New York and now managing director in the legal department at Goldman Sachs.