G. Robert Blakey ’57, ’60J.D., became a nationally known figure in criminal law, legislation and legal education. He was often interviewed about issues such as racketeering, the John F. Kennedy assassination and white-collar crime.
Blakey, the William and Dorothy O’Neill Chair in Law Emeritus, died May 1. He was 90.
He was regarded as a brilliant, intimidating and magnetic classroom presence. “Very serious, very stern. If you weren’t prepared, he was going to put you on the spot. It would be rare for a student to show up to his class unprepared,” said Professor Jimmy Gurulé, whom Blakey recruited to the Notre Dame Law School faculty in 1989.
Gurulé sat in on one of Blakey’s classes soon thereafter. “He was so masterful in how he directed the class. I started getting anxious that he would put me on the spot. I felt like I was back in law school and had that same anxiety,” he said.
Blakey taught and mentored thousands of students, first at Notre Dame from 1964 to 1969, later at Cornell Law School, and back at Notre Dame from 1980 until his retirement in 2012.
He was the principal author of RICO, the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a 1970 law used to fight organized crime, public corruption and complex financial offenses. The law says that people who commit certain crimes as part of a conspiracy or criminal enterprise can be charged with racketeering, and it permits those hurt by the enterprise to sue for treble damages.
In a 1985 New York Times interview, Blakey reflected on the difficulty of prosecuting the Mafia in the era before RICO. “Previously law enforcement was like a wolf to a herd of animals,” he said. “Prosecutors looked for single cases, they picked off the sick and wounded and only made the herd — organized crime — stronger.”
He grew up in Burlington, North Carolina. After completing his Notre Dame education, he started his career in the U.S. Department of Justice as a special attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, where, under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, he helped prosecute organized crime figures and corrupt public officials and union leaders.
In the late 1970s, Blakey served as chief counsel of the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, which investigated the murders of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The committee’s report agreed with the Warren Commission’s finding in 1964 that Lee Harvey Oswald had killed Kennedy. But it also concluded that a second gunman had fired at the president’s limousine in Dallas in 1963, and that organized crime leaders may have conspired in the shooting. A year later, the FBI released its own report, concluding the second gunman theory wasn’t valid.
In 1981, Blakey cowrote The Plot to Kill the President: Organized Crime Assassinated J.F.K. “The president was not the victim of a nut gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald alone,” the authors argued, “but of an organized crime conspiracy.”
He consulted with many state legislators and legislative staffers as they drafted their own RICO laws. He also worked with states that used civil racketeering laws to reach, in 1998, a $206 billion settlement with cigarette makers to recover Medicaid money spent treating smoking-related illness.
Blakey was among a handful of law faculty of his era who were giants in their fields, and who set the tone and culture for the Notre Dame Law School of today, Gurulé said.
He was preceded in death by his wife of 44 years, Elaine, in 2002, and a son, Matthew ’84, in 2014, and is survived by seven children, 18 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Robert J. Lordi enjoyed writing letters to the editor. Sometimes his opinions were tongue in cheek, such as a 1991 column in The Observer offering the modest proposal that the University field two football teams and fill Notre Dame Stadium every fall Saturday in order to raise enough revenue to make up for a College of Arts & Letters budget shortfall.
Lordi, a professor emeritus of English, died March 5. He was 102 years old.
Born and raised in Rockland, Massachusetts, he served in the U.S Army Air Corps during World War II, training as an engine mechanic and bombardier. After the war, Lordi studied at the College of the Holy Cross, Boston College and the University of Illinois, joining the Notre Dame faculty in 1958 and teaching for 37 years before he retired in 1995.
His academic specialties were English literature, Latin and the works of Shakespeare. In addition to scholarly articles, he edited two plays written by Shakespeare’s contemporary George Chapman: Bussy d’Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy d’Ambois. He served on the faculty senate and in 1965-66 as assistant director of Notre Dame’s program in Innsbruck, Austria.
In retirement, he collected antique tools, particularly woodworking planes, and operated an antiques business in Niles, Michigan, with his wife, Dorothy. Until the age of 94 he taught literature and drama courses to senior citizens at Forever Learning Institute in South Bend.
Lordi was preceded in death by Dorothy and their son, Paul. He is survived by a daughter and three grandchildren.
Mario Borelli grew up near Florence, Italy, and had vivid memories of a childhood marked by World War II and hunger. A family nearby had a business producing olive oil. “This family kept us alive with bread and oil during the war, especially during the German occupation of 1944,” he recalled in 2005.
An associate professor emeritus of mathematics, Borelli died April 3. He was 91.
Selected for the postwar Fulbright program, Borelli traveled to the United States and earned his doctorate at Indiana University. Following postdoctoral work in Vancouver, Canada, he came to Notre Dame in 1965. He taught on the faculty for 39 years before his retirement in 2004.
In the 1970s, Borelli codirected a federally funded Notre Dame program to help area teachers earn master’s degrees and improve math education in local school districts. In 1989, in addition to his teaching duties, Borelli was named the University’s director of special instructional projects and activities. He sought funding, particularly to strengthen teacher training, and developed ways to improve educational experiences for underserved groups.
Later he became the administrator of the University’s federal TRIO program, which provides educational services to people from disadvantaged backgrounds. He also served a term as president of the Indiana TRIO chapter.
For many years Borelli directed the Northern Indiana Science and Engineering Fair for children from grade school through high school. He also served on the University’s academic council and as chair of the faculty senate.
He is survived by his wife of more than 65 years, Angela Borelli ’86M.A., a Notre Dame assistant professional specialist emerita of Spanish and Italian, a son and two grandchildren.
Gerald L. Jones, a specialist in statistical, mathematical and biological physics, was the kind of colleague whom others regularly sought out for wisdom and counsel.
A professor emeritus of physics, Jones died April 11. He was 91.
“He had a kind of quiet dignity about him,” said Jacek Furdyna, a professor emeritus of physics and astronomy who considered Jones a mentor and valued his advice.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Jones earned all his degrees at the University of Kansas. He joined Notre Dame in 1963 and served on the faculty for more than four decades, retiring in 2005.
His research interests included condensed matter and the modeling of cell movements in embryonic development. He served several years as chair of the physics department and a term as chair of the faculty senate. His contributions to his discipline and the University garnered a President’s Award in 1998.
Jones was a bird enthusiast and an avid outdoorsman who often canoed in the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. He enjoyed camping, fishing, boating and caring for bluebirds and other wildlife near his home. In retirement, he volunteered at pet adoption events, fostered pets and served as a dog walker.
He is survived by his wife of 71 years, Frances, two sons, a daughter, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Chicago native John Derwent ’55, ’63Ph.D., arrived at Notre Dame as a 17-year-old undergraduate and made it his home for life.
An associate professor emeritus of mathematics, Derwent died April 18. He was 91.
As an undergrad, he served as a football manager under head coach Frank Leahy ’31. After graduation, he enrolled at Princeton University but soon returned to Notre Dame. He entered the seminary and later recalled scrubbing the Log Chapel floor among his obediences. Two years later, he resumed his mathematical studies and completed his doctorate. He joined the faculty in 1964 and taught for 40 years
Derwent served as math department chair and helped restructure the curriculum to better serve students, particularly freshmen. He often volunteered to teach new courses.
He was mild-mannered and loyal to his friends, said Frank Connolly, a professor emeritus of mathematics, who recalls with gratitude how Derwent mentored him when Connolly joined the faculty, helping him settle into his new job. Derwent’s multiple University honors include a 1981 President’s Award, which honors pioneering achievements that advance the University’s goals. In retirement, he continued to advise students.
A lover of good daiquiris and bad jokes, Derwent rode his bike to work whenever he could. At his home near campus, the bon vivant installed a basketball hoop for his family and neighbors to enjoy, and he founded an annual neighborhood ice cream social. He loved Siamese cats, naming his pets after famous mathematicians.
He was preceded in death by his wife of 64 years, Mary Lou, ’62M.S., a former Notre Dame instructor. He is survived by five children and eight grandchildren.
At the request of students planning a talent showcase in April, Xavier Navarro Aquino gamely agreed to portray Bad Bunny in a spoof of the Puerto Rican rapper’s Super Bowl halftime show. His performance was a highlight of the event.
Navarro Aquino, a novelist and assistant professor of English who joined the faculty in 2021, died May 6. He was 36.
Navarro Aquino taught in the Creative Writing Program, was a faculty fellow of the Institute for Latino Studies and was affiliated with the Initiative on Race and Resilience. A native of Puerto Rico, he studied at Iowa State University, the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
He was a first-generation college student. “My ancestors,” he once wrote, “would laugh at the thought of me as a writer, for that type of life was only a fairytale for white boys and girls.”
His novel, Velorio, was published in 2022. The story takes place in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, following characters living in a Puerto Rico devastated by the storm. “From the beginning, Navarro Aquino establishes a visceral, lyric tone that frequently rises to a fever pitch,” wrote a New York Times reviewer, describing the author as “an incredibly talented young writer . . . finding his way.”
He “had a singular voice as a writer and a teacher. Losing him means losing that voice,” said Jason Ruiz, a professor of American studies and director of the Institute for Latino Studies, who recalled Navarro Aquino’s recent visit to his classroom. The novelist spoke about what it means to be a Latino artist. “I was so impressed by his generosity of spirit with the students,” Ruiz said.
Navarro Aquino earned scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee writers’ conferences, a MacDowell Fellowship and an American Council of Learned Societies Emerging Voices Fellowship. His fiction appeared in Tin House, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and other publications.
He enjoyed painting, running, tattoo art and walks with his dogs. He is survived by his wife, Jayleen Santiago Diaz.