Selwyn Raab, Tenacious Reporter Who Covered the Mob, Dies at 90

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.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The ...