Lawsuit Says FBI Used Mafia Help in 1964 Probe

Former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen, serving 60 years for the 1964 slaying of three civil rights workers, has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit alleging that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI paid an organized crime figure to beat and intimidate people to extract information in his case.

The suit alleges that the FBI in 1964 became frustrated with the investigation into three missing civil rights workers and turned to Colombo crime family mobster Gregory Scarpa Sr. (aka the "Grim Reaper"), saying Scarpa intimidated, assaulted and pistol-whipped local residents to help locate the "burial site of the murdered civil rights workers and obtained confessions for the prosecution."

In turn, the suit alleges the FBI paid Scarpa at least $30,000 and gave him "carte blanche to engage in all types of legal and illegal activities."

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