John Gotti

John Gotti
John Gotti
Status	Deceased
Occupation	Boss of the Gambino Crime Family
Spouse	Victoria DiGiorgio
Children	Angela Gotti ; Victoria Gotti ; John A. Gotti ; Frank Gotti ; Peter Gotti
Parent(s)	John and Philomena Gotti
Criminal charge	Murder, conspiracy to commit murder, loansharking, racketeering, obstruction of justice, illegal gambling, tax evasion
Penalty	Life imprisonment

John Joseph Gotti, Jr. (October 27, 1940 – June 10, 2002), also known as The Dapper Don and The Teflon Don, was an American mobster and boss of the Gambino Crime Family, one of the Five Families in New York City. He became widely known for his outspoken personality and flamboyant style that made him the poster child for mobsters, an image that persists even today.

Biography

Early Life

John Joseph "Johnny Boy" Gotti Jr. was born October 27, 1940 to John Gotti Sr. and Philomena "Fannie" Gotti in The Bronx, New York. He was the fifth child of thirteen, two of whom died in infancy. John Gotti Sr. was born in New Jersey to Carmine Gotti, an immigrant from the Neapolitan section of Italy. He and his wife struggled to make ends meet and raised their children in a low-income section of the South Bronx. When Gotti was twelve his family moved to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, a very tough Italian neighborhood at the time.

As a young boy, Gotti had a quick temper and despised those who were more fortunate financially, but instead of wanting to better himself in more traditional ways, he aspired to be one of the mobsters he always saw walking around the neighborhood.

With his brothers Peter and Richard he became part of a local street gang that ran errands for the local wiseguys. Gotti focused more on his street education and less on his formal one. He was constantly absent from school and when he was there he was labeled the class bully. He was such a routine discipline problem that the school showed very little interest in his truancy.

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 toes. He spent most of the summer in the hospital.

When Gotti was sixteen he quit school for good and joined the Fulton-Rockaway Boys, a local teenage gang that stole automobiles, fenced stolen goods, and rolled drunks. It was at this moment in his life where he teamed up with Angelo "Quack-Quack" Ruggiero and Wilfred "Willy Boy" Johnson.

During his time with the Fulton-Rockaway Boys, Gotti was arrested five times. All the charges were eventually dismissed or reduced to probationary sentences.

Family

In 1960, Gotti met Victoria DiGiorgio, and on March 6, 1962 they were married. They had five children together, Angela "Angel" Gotti, Victoria Gotti, John A. Gotti, Frank Gotti and Peter "Pete" Gotti. John and his family lived on 85th Street in Howard Beach.

According to numerous sources, Gotti had two illegitimate children, Annabella "Anna" Gotti and Lidianna "Linsay" Gotti as the result of a longtime affair with Staten Island housewife Shannon "Sandy" Connelly, the wife of a Gambino soldier, Ed Grillo.^[1].After Shannon's murder in 1974, Gotti and his wife DiGiorgio had the guardianship of Annabella and Lidianna.

Career

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 Carmine Fatico who worked for Aniello Dellacroce, underboss of the Gambino Crime Family.

Gotti's criminal career with the Gambino's 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 Angelo and Gotti 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 plead 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 stepfathers' 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.

Dellacroce and Gotti were great friends from the beginning with much in common: They were both fierce, violent, foul-mouthed and clever. This friendship brought Gotti close to boss Carlo Gambino.

Gotti's crew, however, was allegedly caught selling heroin, against the rules of the family, and were to be disbanded. Unhappy with the way Castellano was running the family, Gotti and others in the family allegedly 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 allegedly took control of the family.

File:GottiOzoneParkcar2.jpg

John Gotti getting into his car on 101st Avenue in Ozone Park, Queens

Following his purported ascension to the top position of the Gambino family, Gotti became known as "The Dapper Don," appearing in public wearing $10,000 hand-tailored Brioni suits and reveling in media attention. Gotti was extremely popular in his Queens neighborhood, where he organized free lavish street parties and festivals, and had a reputation for keeping street crime out. He also hosted the annual Fourth of July near his Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park, a neighborhood in Queens, which featured an elaborate fireworks display and became a major media event.

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 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. Gotti bribed or threatened jurors in several trials. He also made use of police informants to keep a step ahead of investigators. While in prison he allegedly hired the Aryan Brotherhood for an unsuccessful murder-for-hire.

Gotti became something of a celebrity, and would frequently shake hands and pose for pictures with tourists outside the Ravenite Social Club in Manhattan, where he conducted business.

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.

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.^[2]

During the trial, crowds gathered outside the courthouse to lend support to Gotti, and the court was filled with spectators including Peter Gotti, John "Jackie Nose" D'Amico, and celebrities like Jay Black and Mickey Rourke.

Prison

On June 23, 1992 Gotti was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.[1] 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 appointed his caporegime son, John Gotti, Jr. as the family's acting boss who was helped by a three-captain committee to run the family.

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. 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.

Popular culture

Gotti was a frequent target of jokes, as well as some admiration. MAD Magazine featured Gotti, once imagining him as a guest on The Rosie O'Donnell Show. Another had him featured in "Scruples Questions We Would Like to See", where Gotti was asked a question from the board game Scruples: "Your best friend asks you to borrow $2,000 for one year. Do you charge interest?"

In his song D'evils, Brooklyn rapper Jay-Z utters the famous line: "I don't pray to God/I pray to Gotti".

Law and Order based the season one character Frank Machuci and the crime family that bares his name on Gotti. Also, the Joe Mantenga character in Godfather III is based somewhat on Gotti.

Gotti was portrayed by Armand Assante in the 1996 HBO film Gotti.

Sonny Marinelli played the part of John Gotti in the 2001 TV movie, Boss of Bosses, which chronicles the life and death of Paul Castellano.

The character of John "Johnny Sack" Sacramoni, from the TV series The Sopranos, has been widely compared to John Gotti. Especially since Johnny Sack tried, unsuccessfully, to kill his boss when he was serving under him and referred to the situation as being different to "Castellano". Also it is shown that Johnny had a penchant for wearing Brioni suits, just like Gotti. John Sacramoni died of cancer in jail after a sentence that all but crippled his criminal career, again much like Gotti.

Notes

References

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

External links

Preceded by Paul Castellano	Gambino Crime Family Boss 1985-2002	Succeeded by John D'Amico

[1] ttp://chicagosyndicate.blogspot.com/2006_02_26_archive.html

[2] ttp://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/mob_bosses/gotti/don_24.html

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