I had a prof from boston back in the day who used to talk about crime there. He used to talk about a leader of some mafia or crime group, and I think it was Mitt Romney’s uncle or cousin or something.
Does anyone know what I’m talking about?
I just remember the prof telling us the horrible things this guy did, then laughing, “Now, his nephew/cousins the Governor of Mass.!”
Offhand, I’d say it’s incredibly unlikely. For one thing, Romney’s family isn’t even from Massachusetts; he was born and raised in Michigan. And in addition to Romney’s own political career, his father had a long political career and was the Governor of Michigan and the Secretary of HUD and his mother ran for the Senate. So the chances that his family had connections with organized crime and nobody mentioned it before now but that somehow your professor knew about it is virtually impossible.
Wrong MA pol. You’re probably thinking instead of James “Whitey” Bulger, South Boston crime boss, still on the Most Wanted List with something like 20 murders. He’s free largely because of paying off the FBI agent(s) assigned to watch him.
His brother William, an undeniable charmer, was at the same time the long-time Speaker of the state House of Representatives, later President of the University of Massachusetts.
I don’t think having a relative who was involved in organized crime counts as having links to organized crime. By that standard, you’d paint Giuliani with that brush, since his father was an ex-con who did time in Sing Sing for robbing a milkman and later beat up people for a loan shark.
The New York mafia really doesn’t consider Rudy Giuliani to be one of their own, do they?
Hell, by that standard I have links to organized crime, due to the activities of some of the more colorful members of my mom’s family.
If someones brother was a terrorist, the US would consider that a ‘link’. 
Why not? Someone in New York should, I guess.
The Mormon Mafia. Like the Sopranos, without the cursing.
Or caffeine.
Unless it is your spouse, right? 
Or booze. Or strip clubs.
Not a very fun Mafia at all.
Greats marksmen, though.
Or perhaps Ohio’s James Traficant. And: http://www.moldea.com/Traficant.html
Same as Elvis says, the crook was James “Whitey” Bulger, and his politician relative was William “Billy” Bolger.
Most everyone thought that Rudy was squeaky clean. Then we got the scoop on Bernie Kerik. When Rudy was the prosecutor was he just getting rid of the competition?
It does if you know where a fugitive is hiding and refuse to tell the cops. Bill Bulger has always denied knowing where Whitey is, but is not widely believed.
UncleBeer, who was Traficant’s black-sheep brother, and when was he ever from Mass.? I don’t see why you mentioned him.
Did you hear about the time the Mormon Mafia made a deal with the Columbian Cartel? They set up a high level meeting and told them they were looking to start selling drugs in Salt Lake City. The Columbians figure any new market is good for their business and agrees to sell them five thousand pounds to get their dealers started. A couple of weeks later they have another meeting.
“So, amigos, how’s the business going?”
“Everything’s been great. Our people are on the street and we’ve already sold most of what you supplied us with. There was only one thing we wanted to ask you.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, when we got the shipment from you, we opened it up to check it out and we were a little surprised by the color. We’d always heard coffee was brown.”