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Selwyn Raab, Tenacious Reporter Who Covered the Mob, Dies at 90
Selwyn Raab, Tenacious Reporter Who Covered the Mob, Dies at 90
At The Times and elsewhere, he wrote about wrongful convictions, fake methadone clinics and the five powerful Mafia families in New York.
The reporter Selwyn Raab in 1974, the year he joined The New York Times. He would work there for 26 years. The New York Times
By Clyde Haberman
March 4, 2025
Selwyn Raab, an investigative reporter for The New York Times and other news organizations who in exacting detail explored the Mafia’s many tentacles, and whose doggedness helped lead to the exoneration of men wrongly convicted of notorious 1960s killings, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 90. ... His son-in-law, Matthew Goldstein, a Times reporter, said the cause of his death, at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, was intestinal complications.
Though the phrase surely fit him, Mr. Raab didn’t much care to be described as an investigative journalist. Rather, he said, “I believe in enterprise and patience.” He had both qualities in abundance across a long career, whether looking into fraudulent methadone clinics, or the life sentence given to a boy who was only 14 when convicted of murder, or the Mafia’s grip on New York City school construction. ... He was also the author of a number of books about the mob, including one that became the basis of the 1970s television police drama “Kojak.”
The mob had his enduring attention as far back as the 1960s, and it led to his definitive 765-page book on New York wiseguys, “Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires,” published in 2005. The New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik described him in a 2020 article as “the Gibbon of the New York mob.” ... His prose tended to stray from elegance. But Bryan Burrough, reviewing “Five Families” for The New York Times Book Review, said that “what makes Raab so wonderful is that he eschews legend and suspect anecdotage in favor of a Joe Friday-style just-the-facts-ma’am approach.”
The mob had Mr. Raab’s enduring attention as far back as the 1960s, and it led to his definitive book “Five Families,” published in 2005. Thomas Dunne Books
Mr. Raab posited that it was Charles (Lucky) Luciano who invented the modern Mafia nearly a century ago, organizing Italian criminal operations into distinct families, with a “commission” created to resolve territorial disputes and policy matters.
{snip}
A version of this article appears in print on March 6, 2025, Section B, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Selwyn Raab, 90, Dies; ‘Just-the-Facts’ Writer On the New York Mob. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
At The Times and elsewhere, he wrote about wrongful convictions, fake methadone clinics and the five powerful Mafia families in New York.
The reporter Selwyn Raab in 1974, the year he joined The New York Times. He would work there for 26 years. The New York Times
By Clyde Haberman
March 4, 2025
Selwyn Raab, an investigative reporter for The New York Times and other news organizations who in exacting detail explored the Mafia’s many tentacles, and whose doggedness helped lead to the exoneration of men wrongly convicted of notorious 1960s killings, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 90. ... His son-in-law, Matthew Goldstein, a Times reporter, said the cause of his death, at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, was intestinal complications.
Though the phrase surely fit him, Mr. Raab didn’t much care to be described as an investigative journalist. Rather, he said, “I believe in enterprise and patience.” He had both qualities in abundance across a long career, whether looking into fraudulent methadone clinics, or the life sentence given to a boy who was only 14 when convicted of murder, or the Mafia’s grip on New York City school construction. ... He was also the author of a number of books about the mob, including one that became the basis of the 1970s television police drama “Kojak.”
The mob had his enduring attention as far back as the 1960s, and it led to his definitive 765-page book on New York wiseguys, “Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires,” published in 2005. The New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik described him in a 2020 article as “the Gibbon of the New York mob.” ... His prose tended to stray from elegance. But Bryan Burrough, reviewing “Five Families” for The New York Times Book Review, said that “what makes Raab so wonderful is that he eschews legend and suspect anecdotage in favor of a Joe Friday-style just-the-facts-ma’am approach.”
The mob had Mr. Raab’s enduring attention as far back as the 1960s, and it led to his definitive book “Five Families,” published in 2005. Thomas Dunne Books
Mr. Raab posited that it was Charles (Lucky) Luciano who invented the modern Mafia nearly a century ago, organizing Italian criminal operations into distinct families, with a “commission” created to resolve territorial disputes and policy matters.
{snip}
A version of this article appears in print on March 6, 2025, Section B, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Selwyn Raab, 90, Dies; ‘Just-the-Facts’ Writer On the New York Mob. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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