Frank Ragano, a Tampa native who defended murderers and mob bosses, who claimed involvement in the Kennedy assassination and survived an encounter with a gunman trying to kill Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, has died peacefully in his own bed. He was 75. Ragano's son found his father's body Wednesday morning, when Ragano failed to wake at his normal hour. Police said no foul play is suspected. Ragano represented numerous gangland figures, including alleged Tampa mobster Santo Trafficante, who died of old age without ever being convicted of a crime. In his bestselling book, Mob Lawyer, Ragano claimed to be a pivotal, yet innocent player in what he described as a Mafia hit on President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. Ragano said in the book, published in 1994, that he carried a message from Hoffa, a client of his, to Trafficante in the summer of 1963. He said Hoffa wanted John F. Kennedy killed because his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, was persecuting the union boss. He said Trafficante later admitted the hit during a walk on Tampa's Bayshore Boulevard. Trafficante's family vigorously denied Ragano's allegation and produced hospital records showing Trafficante wasn't in Tampa on the days Ragano cited in his book. But Ragano told his story on national talk shows, such as Larry King Live, while promoting the book. Ragano grew up poor in Tampa, the son of Sicilian immigrants. He fought in World War II and went to Stetson Law School on the GI Bill. He came back to Tampa and went to work for famed defense attorney Frank Whittaker. In 1954, a gambler and Cuban casino owner named Santo Trafficante hired Whittaker to represent some employees who were facing gambling charges. Whittaker gave the case to Ragano. The $140,000 in legal fees helped Ragano start his practice. In 1957, he represented Trafficante himself, when he was linked with the murder of Mafia boss Alber Anastasia and was arrested with 62 other mob bosses in New York state. Ragano kept Trafficante out of jail. In return, Ragano lived the high life in Tampa, Havana and Miami, hobnobbing with Frank Sinatra and other movie stars, showgirls and New Orleans mobster Carlos Marcello. During the time he was Trafficante's lawyer, Ragano claimed the man was a gambler, but not a mobster. "I would take his word before many a banker's I have never known him to violate the law," Ragano told a reporter in 1967. Tampa newspaper columnist Roland Manteiga remembers Ragano from those days. "He always dressed very well, and he spent a lot of money," said Manteiga. "He had the right kind of clients _ people with money." And he had plenty of courtroom savvy, Manteiga said. He recalled Ragano's defense of 28-year-old Tampa haberdasher Frank Traina in a Miami murder case. Traina admitted he tied up and gagged a red-haired housewife named Terry Rix. Rix died, and Traina admitted stuffing her upside down in a garbage can, filling it with cement and dumping it in the Miami River. First-degree murder, said the Miami prosecutors. Fooey, said Ragano. He put Traina on the stand. "Did you mean to kill her?" he asked. "No," said Traina. "It was an accident." Traina said Rix was a next-door neighbor who pestered him for sex and then was causing trouble afterward. That's when he bound and gagged her. It wasn't Traina's fault she died, Ragano argued. But when she did, he panicked and dumped her body. Ragano then asked the jury: "Under similar circumstances would you have reacted much the same way?" Traina beat the murder charge. Ragano also won freedom for a Tampa nurseryman who admitted stalking and shooting one of the teenagers in his neighborhood who had been siphoning gas from his truck. He was charged with first-degree murder. Every man's home is his castle, Ragano argued, and juvenile delinquency has to be stopped somewhere. The jury agreed. In a 1967 interview, Ragano said the law was more than just words on paper. "I ask the jury to follow the technical law. But I also ask them to follow the human law _ the inherent knowledge of what is right and wrong beyond the technicalities." But Ragano wasn't always successful with juries. Even with famed lawyer Melvin Belli at his side, he lost his libel suit against Time magazine in 1971. The magazine had published a photograph of mob figures that included Ragano and identified the lawyer as a mobster. Ragano also lost when he faced tax evasion charges in 1974 and 1990. He spent 11 months in a Federal Medical Center after the 1990 conviction, which was overturned on appeal and ultimately dismissed. He blamed his tax troubles on bad bookkeeping and government agents out to get him. And that wasn't all his courtroom trouble. He was almost shot during one case. Ragano was at Hoffa's side in a Nashville courtroom in 1964 when a man burst in and started shooting at Hoffa. Hoffa was hit three times before he managed to punch the gunman across the courtroom. The small-caliber bullets weren't fatal. Later, Ragano asked Hoffa why he hadn't just dived under a table when the shooting started. Hoffa said: "Frank, remember this and maybe you'll live longer. Always run from a knife but charge a gun." Funeral arrangements for Ragano have not been announced.