John Gotti

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For other persons named John Gotti, see John Gotti (disambiguation).
John Gotti
Born October 27, 1940(1940-10-27)
Flag of the United States The Bronx, New York City, New York, U.S.
Died June 10, 2002 (aged 61)
Springfield, Missouri, USA
Penalty Life imprisonment
Status Deceased
Occupation Boss of the Gambino Crime Family
Spouse Victoria DiGiorgio
Parents John and Philomena Gotti
Children Angela Gotti
Victoria Gotti
John A. Gotti
Frank Gotti
Peter Gotti, Jr.

John Joseph Gotti, Jr. (October 27, 1940 – June 10, 2002), commonly known by the media as "The Dapper Don" and "The Teflon Don", was the boss of the Gambino crime family, one of the Five Families in New York City after the murder of his former boss Paul Castellano. He became widely known for his outspoken personality and flamboyant style that eventually caused his own downfall. In 1992, Gotti was convicted of racketeering, 13 murders, obstruction of justice, hijacking, conspiracy to commit murder, illegal gambling, extortion, tax evasion and loansharking among others largely helped by testimony of his Underboss Salvatore Gravano, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, where he would eventually die in 2002.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

John Joseph "Johnny Boy" Gotti Jr. was born October 27, 1940 to Italian-American parents John Gotti Sr. and Philomena "Fannie" Gotti. He was the fifth child of thirteen, two of whom died in infancy. When Gotti was twelve, his family moved to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. With his brothers Peter and Richard, he became part of a local street gang. In the early summer of 1954, Gotti and a few other hoods participated in a robbery of a construction site. While trying to steal a cement mixer, the mixer tipped over, crushing Gotti's foot, that is why he walked with a swagger. He spent most of the summer in the hospital.

[edit] Family

In 1960, Gotti met and fell in love with Victoria DiGiorgio. They married on March 6, 1962,and a year later, their first child, Angela (Angel), was born.[1] The two went on to have four more children; Victoria Gotti, John A. Gotti, Frank Gotti, and Peter Gotti, named after his uncle, John's brother, Peter Gotti. John and his family lived on 85th Street in Howard Beach.

On March 18, 1980 his 12-year old son, Frank, while riding a mini bike around Howard Beach was accidentally knocked down and killed by neighbor John Favara's car. Frank and Favara's son, Scott, were friends, often having sleepovers at each other's homes. Although the death was viewed as accidental by the authorities, Favara was kidnapped and murdered by eight members of Gotti's crew.[2] while Gotti and his wife were conveniently out of town.[3]

According to numerous sources,[who?] Gotti may have up to three illegitimate children, with one named Bella Petrisi (Petrisia) being the result of a longtime affair with Staten Island housewife Shannon "Sandy" Connelly, the wife of Gambino soldier Ernie Grillo.[4]

His daughter Victoria, along with her three sons; Carmine, John and Frank starred in the reality TV series Growing Up Gotti.[5]

[edit] Rise in the Gambinos

After his marriage, Gotti tried working legitimate careers. He worked as a coat factory presser and a truck driver's assistant, but he was always drawn back to a life of crime. In 1963, Gotti and Salvatore Ruggiero were arrested by police for being in an automobile that had been reported stolen from a rental car agency. Gotti spent twenty days in jail. Around this time Gotti was arrested often, mostly on petty crimes such as larceny, burglary, and bookmaking. In 1966, he spent several months in jail for an attempted theft. In 1966, Gotti also became an associate for a crew headed by reputed captain Carmine Fatico, who worked for Aniello "Mr. Neil" Dellacroce, the Underboss of the Gambino crime family.

Gotti's criminal career with the Gambinos began with fencing stolen goods from Idlewild Airport out of the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park, Queens. Gotti became successful enough at this lifestyle to move his family to a nicer apartment in Brooklyn. On November 27, 1967, Gotti and Angelo Ruggiero forged the name of a forwarding company agent and then took a rented truck to JFK's United cargo area and drove off with $30,000 worth of merchandise. A few days later the FBI began surveillance on Gotti and Ruggiero and caught them loading up more goods, this time at Northwest Airlines cargo terminal. Once outside the terminal Gotti's brother Gene pulled alongside Gotti's truck and they began to transfer the goods. The FBI swooped in and arrested all three men and found Gotti hiding in the rear of the truck behind some boxes.

In February 1968, United employees identified Gotti as the man who signed for the earlier stolen merchandise. The FBI arrested him for the United hijacking soon after. Two months later, while out on bail, Gotti was arrested a third-time for hijacking--this time stealing a load of cigarettes worth $500,000 on the New Jersey Turnpike. Fatico urged Gotti to hire defense attorney Michael Coiro. Later that year Gotti pled guilty to the Northwest hijacking and was sentenced to four years at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. Prosecutors dropped the charges for the cigarette hijacking. Gotti also pleaded guilty to the United hijacking. Gotti spent less than three years at Lewisburg. After he was released from prison he was placed on probation and ordered to find a legitimate job. Gotti was placed on the payroll of his wife's stepfather's construction company where he reportedly never showed up for work but remained on the payroll. Meanwhile he returned to his old crew at the Bergin club still working under Fatico. When Fatico was indicted on loansharking charges, he used Gotti to oversee the day-to-day activities at the club. This helped get the attention of the Gambinos, specifically of Dellacroce, and, at the age of thirty-one, Gotti became acting capo. Gotti owned a Queens flea market with Genovese crime family wiseguys Joseph "Joe Glitz" Galizia and Carlo DiPietro, eventually Gotti and Galizia decided they wanted DiPietro out of the business, and Galizia killed DiPietro.

Gotti's crew, however, was caught selling heroin, against the rules of the family, and were to be disbanded, and maybe killed. Gotti and others in his crew organized the shooting of the Gambino family boss, Paul Castellano, on December 16, 1985. Castellano was shot six times, along with his bodyguard, Thomas Bilotti, outside Sparks Steak House in Manhattan and Gotti took control of the family. Gotti was arrested several times throughout his career, and although he served time in both state and federal prison (including a manslaughter conviction in connection with the shooting death of a low-level Irish-American gangster who had kidnapped and killed Emmanuel Gambino, Carlo Gambino's nephew, named James McBratney in a tavern on Staten Island in 1973), in the 1980s he was referred to by the media as the "Teflon Don" as he avoided conviction on racketeering and assault charges (they didn't stick). Gotti bribed or threatened jurors in several trials. He also made use of police informants to keep a step ahead of investigators.

[edit] The last trial

Gotti was long under intense electronic surveillance run by the FBI. His club, phones, and other places of business were all bugged. To get around this, he held meetings while walking down the street and played loud tapes of white noise. Eventually the FBI caught him on tape in an apartment above the club discussing a number of murders and other criminal activities. The FBI also caught Gotti denigrating his underboss Salvatore "Sammy The Bull" Gravano. On December 11, 1990, FBI agents and New York City detectives raided the Ravenite Social Club and arrested Gotti, Gravano, Frank Locascio, and Thomas Gambino , Gotti was charged with 13 counts of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, loansharking, racketeering, obstruction of justice, illegal gambling, tax evasion, and, for the first time, he was charged with the murders of Paul Castellano and Thomas Bilotti.

Gotti was tried in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York before the Honorable I. Leo Glasser. The federal prosecutor's evidence was overwhelming. Not only did they have Gotti on tape, they also had several witnesses to testify against Gotti. Philip Leonetti, former underboss of the Philadelphia Crime Family was prepared to testify that Gotti bragged to Philadelphia crime leaders that he had ordered Castellano's execution. Prosecutors also persuaded Gravano to testify against his boss with the promise of being entered into the Witness Protection Program. On April 2, 1992, after only 13 hours of deliberation, the jury found Gotti guilty on all 13 charges.[6]

[edit] Prison

On June 23, 1992, Judge Glasser sentenced Gotti to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.[7] It was assumed that Gotti would serve his sentence at the new federal "supermax" facility at Florence, Colorado, but instead he was sent to the older United States Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, where he was kept in a cell 23 hours a day. His cell was underground and measured eight feet by seven feet. He was allowed out of his cell one hour per day for solitary exercise in a concrete-walled enclosure. He was allowed two showers per week and one radio and a small black and white T.V. set in his cell. Meals were delivered to his cell through a slot in the door. In other words, he was in virtual solitary confinement. (This is standard procedure for all inmates in the restricted units at this Supermax Federal Prison.) While in Marion he had been confined along with convicted spies Jonathan Pollard and Christopher Boyce. Four days after John Gotti was imprisoned at Marion, his father John Gotti Sr. died of heart failure at the age of eighty-five. Gotti paid the notorious prison gang the Aryan Brotherhood $50,000 a year for protection. However, in 1996 Gotti insulted Walter Johnson, a black inmate on the prison yard with racial slurs. The black inmate later assaulted Gotti. Gotti felt completely disrespected and paid the Aryan Brotherhood $500,000 to kill Gotti's attacker. However, Gotti died of cancer soon afterwards and the murder was never carried out.

[edit] Death

Gotti died of throat cancer at 12:45 p.m. on June 10, 2002 at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, where he had been transferred once the cancer was diagnosed. His family claimed he had not received proper care in jail and that faulty dental work had aggravated the disease. Gotti had the lower half of his jaw removed due to the cancer and was fed through a tube. Following his death, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn announced that Gotti's family would not be permitted to have a Mass of Christian Burial for Gotti. The church said that Gotti's family would be allowed to have a Mass for the Dead for Gotti only after he had been buried. The Catholic Church had taken similar action against other organized crime figures such as Paul Castellano; but unlike Castellano, Gotti's family was permitted to have him buried in the mausoleum at Saint John's Cemetery in Queens, next to his son Frank Gotti.[8]

[edit] Funeral

The day after he died, Gotti's body was flown by a private jet to New York. His body was dressed in a blue suit and placed into a solid bronze gold-colored casket for two nights of visitation June 13 and 14 at the Papavero Funeral Home in Maspeth, NY.[9] The private funeral started at 10 a.m. June 15, in the funeral home. Stretch limousines clogged the street in front of the funeral home.[9] Hundreds of mourners crowded into the chapel which was filled with giant floral tributes that would require 19 Cadillac flower cars to transport to the cemetery. At 10:35 a.m.,eight pallbearers shoulder-carried the casket to the awaiting hearse while helicopters hovered overhead. Enroute to St. John's Cemetery the 100-car funeral procession circled Gotti's longtime home in Howard Beach then passed by his old headquarters at Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park.[9] One neighbor told reporters that "Mr. Gotti was good for the neighborhood. Once he was gone, the neighborhood went to hell. You can't walk safe anymore."[9]

[edit] References

 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008)
  1. ^ John Gotti - The Last Mafia Icon Marriage and Career
  2. ^ The Tragedy of Frank Gotti
  3. ^ Who Killed John Favara?
  4. ^ The Chicago Syndicate: 2/26/06 - 3/5/06
  5. ^ Growing Up Gotti at the Internet Movie Database
  6. ^ John Gotti - The Last Mafia Icon - The Crime library
  7. ^ John Gotti - The Last Mafia Icon - The Crime library
  8. ^ "John Gotti Dies in Prison at 61; Mafia Boss Relished the Spotlight", New York Times, June 11, 2002. Retrieved on 2007-08-21. "John J. Gotti, who seized control of the Gambino crime family in a murderous coup, flaunted his power during a flamboyant reign as a Mafia boss, and then spent the last years of his life locked away in a maximum security penitentiary, his gang in shambles, died yesterday at the federal prison hospital at Springfield, Mo. He was 61. ... Mr. Gotti asked Mr. Dellacroce to intervene with Mr. Castellano, but before any resolution was made, Mr. Dellacroce died of cancer in December 1985. Two weeks later, on the evening of Dec. 16, 1985, Mr. Castellano and his new underboss, Thomas Billotti, were gunned down by a team of assassins in front of Sparks Steak House on East 46th Street near Third Avenue in Manhattan." 
  9. ^ a b c d Ruggeri, E. Funerals of the Famous: John Gotti. The American Funeral Director. Vol. 131 (No. 5) May 2008, pp 46-53.

[edit] Further reading

  • Blum, Howard. Gangland : How The FBI Broke the Mob. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. ISBN 0671687581
  • Capeci, Jerry and Gene Mustain. Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti. New York: Penguin, 1988. ISBN 0-02-864416-6
  • Capeci, Jerry and Gene Mustain. Gotti: Rise and Fall. New York: Onyx, 1996. ISBN 0-451-40681-8
  • Davis, John H. Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. ISBN 0-06-109184-7

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Paul Castellano		 Gambino Crime Family Boss
1985–2002		 Succeeded by
Peter Gotti