Mafia Considered Killing Chief Justice Burger

The New York Sun reports:

It could have been just idle chitchat among bored prison inmates. The problem was, they weren't your average inmates, and the subject of their threatening chatter was the chief justice of the United States.

Languishing at the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa., mobsters from three top Mafia families allegedly had murder on their minds in 1979, according to recently released FBI documents. And the intended victim was Warren Burger.

At least that was the story a confidential informant told the FBI two years later. For good measure, the informant claimed, the plotters had also discussed hitting an unnamed federal judge, apparently seated in New Jersey.

No word yet whether the plotters where union delegates.