Gangland news 20th April 2017

[Hailbritain]

By Gene Mustain

John Gotti: Rise And Fall

Gang Land Exclusive!Gene MustainIt may have been the most dramatic pregnant pause in Brooklyn Federal Court history. "The government calls Salvatore Gravano," a prosecutor had just said, trying hard to sound matter of fact. A heavy blanket of silence then fell across a filled courtroom. One long minute slid by. Many eyes focused on a closed door next to the jury box, through which witnesses in custody entered to take the stand. Two minutes.

This was a quarter of a century ago. John Gotti, a Mafia legend of that time and in his mind, sat at the defense table, staring at the door, a smirk on his face, a serpent tattoo on a shoulder beneath his stony grey double-breasted suit. If convicted, his short noisy reign ends ignominiously; he goes to prison for life. The courtroom stayed pin-drop silent. Three minutes.

John GottiBeyond the door, in a room next to the judge's chambers, Gravano took his time, fighting jitters, preparing to take an alien oath to tell the truth. He was about to become the first Mafia underboss to testify against a boss and destroy an aura of Gotti invincibility fed by prior courtroom wins and circulation-and-ratings-minded coverage vulnerable to his manipulation. Four minutes.

"Okay, Bo, let's go," Gravano finally said to a government handler.

The door opened to admit Gravano and stir a quiet murmur. After a few preliminary questions, prosecutor John Gleeson got to the main point with a query about Gravano's role in the criminal enterprise known as the Gambino family. Gravano replied: "John was the boss. I was the underboss." Later on, he spoke metaphorically of the relationship's underlying dynamic: "John barked and I bit."

A lot more tumbled out the first day, March 2, 1992, and during eight more, as Gravano drove daggers into Gotti's heart with his account, on top of many others, of a crime quickly etched into New York City gangland lore: the murders of Gotti's predecessor boss, Paul Castellano, and an aide outside a manly steakhouse in midtown Manhattan in the late afternoon light of the 1985 Christmas season.

Salvatore GravanoGravano put himself and Gotti at the scene, Gotti at the wheel of an idling black Lincoln a half block away, himself in the passenger seat, an armed and ready backup shooter, in case four men with pistols rushing up to shoot Castellano and his aide needed help. They didn't.

The murders were among five in the indictment, all of which Gravano pinned on Gotti in one indirect way or another. As a 19-time killer, Gravano was adept at fatal deceptions — he murdered his unknowing wife's brother — and eyebrows were raised when the government granted a deal he sought after he was indicted with Gotti and heard notes of deceit from Gotti on secretly tape-recorded conversations. The agreed-to deal: tell us all you know in exchange for 20 years or less, and it may well be less.

It would end up being much less, five years, but Gravano's offer was too tempting to refuse. With Gravano testifying against him, Gotti was left virtually defenseless. His only defense would be an "I'm-guilty-so-what?" defense, in the hope his seductive charm might sway some juror who had not been candid during voir dire about an affection for gangsters.

John GleesonGravano's defection was the biggest of several recent violations of the Cosa Nostra oath of silence. In New York and elsewhere in gangland, the government was using the hammer of newly appreciated racketeering statutes — three strikes and you are very out — to turn the underworld into an every-man-for-himself rats' nest.

This was the second swing at Gotti by the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office, the first having ended in a stunning acquittal in 1987. That victory further germinated his budding reputation for standing outside the law and getting away with it, a romantic idea to some in the city's anti-authority precincts, and to those across the city who simply appreciated a good gangster story because the genre is so deeply embedded in American culture and the bad guys always lose in the end anyway.

The outcome in the 1987 case, whether celebrated or noted with interest, was preceded by headlines about two other stories that helped draw the emerging image of a larger-than-life character. Following Castellano's murder, and leaked suggestions about Gotti's role in it, a tragic chapter of Gotti's past, unknown except to law enforcement and citizens of his neighborhood in Queens, unfolded from the city's newsrooms.

Paul Castellano hitIn 1980, Gotti's son Frank, 12 years old and riding a friend's minibike, was hit and killed by a car driven by a neighborhood resident. Frightful things began to happen. The neighbor got telephoned death threats; Gotti's wife attacked him with a baseball bat. One day, he was abducted near his home and never seen again.

Then came 1984, when Gotti got into a traffic tiff with a mechanic, who filed assault charges, unaware, as they say, who he was messing with. By 1986, when the case came to trial, the mechanic was too aware. He was unable to identify Gotti or recall anything, even his grand jury testimony. Gotti, with his silver swept-back mane, strutted out of the courtroom like a peacock walking on stage to accept an award; the verdict inspired a New York Post headline writer to pen one of the tabloid world's all-time greatest hits: "I FORGOTTI!"

A media typhoon with the implicit notion that gangsters do live outside the law washed across the city. It was followed by another a month later when a bomb blew up two mobsters exiting a Gambino family social club in Bensonhurst, including one the killers thought was Gotti. The judge in the first federal racketeering case against Gotti, then meandering through pre-trial matters, delayed the trial in the hope of finding jurors untainted by publicity. He also revoked Gotti's bail, citing contortions in the "I FORGOTTI!" case.

John GottiAvoiding taint in any case against Gotti became more difficult after he was found not-guilty when the delayed federal case resumed and he strutted out the exit again in 1987, to be known now as not just the Dapper Don, the original testament to his pointy-neck shirts and matching paisley ties and pocket chiefs, but also Teflon Don, as in, nothing sticks.

The strutting and the new nickname assured future trouble. Every law enforcement agency in a jurisdictional position to do so undertook get-Gotti missions. The first assault was launched early in 1989 when a team of local, state and federal forces arrested the Teflon Don near the Ravenite Social Club in the Little Italy section of lower Manhattan. Gotti, after becoming boss, had issued a highly dubious edict that required key associates to meet him there for regular consultations, making it easy to surveil and identify them as they entered.

The 1989 charge was related to Gotti getting caught on a listening device discussing the appropriate retaliation against a union official for trashing a business of a Gotti associate that used nonunion workers. Gotti chose to put a "rocket in his pocket" as the proper response, and the assigned shooters got the carpenters union official, John O'Connor, once in the derriere, which was enough for assault and conspiracy charges.

John O'ConnorLo and behold, when the trial came in February of 1990, the union official testified on Gotti's behalf. Jurors also said Gotti's words were too unclear on the tape. Case closed. His third victory strut took him out of the courtroom via a private elevator used by judges, and then into a chauffeured car and onto a firecracker salute outside the Ravenite Social Club. A dial-a-quote psychologist gushed that Gotti was a "typical American frontier risk-taker."

Beneath the celebration, however, lay anxiety. A few days before, Gotti had realized he might have been indiscreet in the presence of another listening device when he learned from an informer that the authorities had learned of "some apartment" where Gotti held court. This was all the result of one more dubious idea — that it was okay to speak candidly in the tiny flat two floors above the Ravenite where a gangster widow lived. FBI agents had tried for a long time to figure out where Gotti conducted his consultations. They finally did, and a black bag squad installed the necessary equipment in October of 1989, while the O'Connor case was underway and the widow was away on holiday.

Donald TrumpFor the next three months, until the informant's tip made him wary, whenever Gotti wanted to speak with Gravano or others, someone would slip the widow a hundred-dollar bill and tell her to go shopping. The men then gathered in her living room and opened wide windows onto the Gambino family enterprise.

One of the most damaging conversations was more monologue. On Dec. 12, 1989, Gotti soaked in a bath of uncommon connivance and self-reverence. He sounded like a man he later compared himself with, Donald J. Trump, then a casino boss, for cleverly using "beards" – men who seemed part of an entourage out on the town, but who were really giving cover to a man cheating on his wife.

Ravente Social Club After Gotti's 1990 AcquittalGotti spoke indirectly of the Castellano murder: "Who's gonna challenge me? Who's gonna defy me? What are they going to do? Take a shot? Like I did to the other guy? I'd welcome that. I'll kill their fuckin' mothers, their fathers." He described murder as a business practice: "Every time we got a partner that don't agree with us, we kill him … (the) boss kills him. He kills him. He okays it. Says it's all right, good."

The agents listening in were ecstatic. The words were clear this time. So was the nature of the man the federal prosecutors would again bring to trial early in 1992 for many crimes besides the Castellano murder. The case grew overwhelming when Gravano flipped and revealed other secrets, including that Gotti had purchased a not-guilty verdict in the first Eastern District case by buying an un-sequestered juror. The juror got $60,000 for his contribution to myth-making.

In April of 1992, not-for-sale, sequestered, and anonymous jurors did not take long to throw the gavel down on the "I'm-guilty-so-what?" defense. Guilty across the board. Convicted of every charge. Case closed.

The Teflon Is Gone; The Don Is Covered With Velcro

John Gotti At MarionThe fourth John Gotti trial in six years exceeded expectation. It was a legal drama and carnival sideshow; part Broadway, part Hollywood. The judge presided while under a death threat. Bomb-sniffing dogs prowled hallways ringing with false fire alarms. It ended in a riot.

Before proceedings began, the judge kicked Gotti's long-time lawyers, Bruce Cutler and Gerald Shargel, out of the case for essentially being too close to the Gambino family enterprise. They were replaced by Albert Krieger, who had a reputation for shredding witnesses, especially turncoats such as the key prosecution witness, Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano.

Krieger faced off against John Gleeson, a veteran of the 1987 case who had recently learned that his 24-7 labor had been for naught because the case had been cooked all along due to Gotti's purchase of a juror. Gleeson was joined by Andrew Maloney, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District, and FBI agent George Gabriel, who with his boss Bruce Mouw had struggled nearly five years to get Gotti.

Bruce MouwThe legal teams tried to stay focused on the stakes. If Gotti won, it might never again be possible to bring a case against him. It would be seen as the revenge of sore losers. If he lost, it meant life in prison because of the three-strikes-and-you-are-out racketeering laws.

Beyond threats, dogs, and false alarms, it was hard to stay focused. In a scene straight out of The Godfather, a young man Gravano had stood up for in the midst of a personal crisis and who regarded Sammy Bull as a father, was brought into the courtroom by Gotti acolytes to sit plainly in sight of Gravano shortly after he took the stand. As Gravano began to testify, the would-be son rose and slowly exited the courtroom, eyes coldly fixed on his former idol.

Gravano was unnerved, but briefly. By the time a woman burst into the courtroom and shrieked that Gravano was a murderer who wasted her two sons, he was immune to theatrics, even to Krieger's lacerating but ultimately harmless cross-examination.

Andrew MaloneyGotti's public relations team got various celebrities to appear for a headline, or sub-head. Actor Anthony Quinn, who had socialized with Gotti at an upscale Upper East Side eatery and was then under consideration for a late-career gangster reprise, tried to shake hands with Gotti, but wasn't permitted to enter the well of the courtroom. But he did say, "Hello, John," and "Sorry, John," before leaving.

"Tomorrow, the good guys are going to bring in Clint Eastwood," Maloney deadpanned to Krieger.

Actor Mickey Rourke spoke pro-Gotti words for print reporters in hallways before bolting at the idea of saying them for TV cameras and was last seen racing across Cadman Plaza park to get lost.

Albert Krieger"What a jerk," complained Lewis Kasman, one of the Gotti acolytes in charge of setting up stunts and appearances.

The Gotti PR operation included two actually charming men, Jackie D'Amico, a Gambino crew chief otherwise born to host a television variety show, and Carlo Vaccarezza, suave owner of the restaurant where the Dapper Don had met Quinn.

"John had only two things going for him," D'Amico confided. "He was loved and feared."

"John's a man's man," Vaccarezza soothed.

After the jury announced its guilty verdict, Gotti stood and seethed, but had nothing to say.

Gotti Gulity Daily NewsBut New York FBI boss Jim Fox told reporters: "The Teflon is gone. The Don is covered with Velcro.

Those who loved Gotti celebrated by overturning police cars. Gotti, who had a well-known fear of flying, was air-lifted to a hard-case prison in Illinois and confined 23 hours a day shortly after he was sentenced two months later. In a few years, throat cancer came on and slowly destroyed him. In 2002, he died at age 61 and was buried back in New York in a gold coffin following a 75-limousine funeral procession monitored by TV news helicopters.

Gotti's gone, but remembered in ways he probably would rejoice, but also resent. He's been portrayed in five films, but also featured in the lyrics of several rap songs by groups such as Ace Hood and Yo Gotti. He's been an answer 30 times in crossword puzzles, including most recently in the March 14 Wall Street Journal. The clues range from the possibly confusing – "Don John" – to the impossibly cute, "Don Turned Con." Most of the others involve some play on two words well-known in headlines a quarter century ago, Teflon and dapper.

Our Man In Pool Swims With Sharks

Judge I. Leo GlasserHaving also just heard the judge liken me to a safecracker, I felt as much bond with John Gotti as I am ever likely to when I walked into a conference room yesterday and overhead Gotti discussing the First Amendment.

Brooklyn Federal Judge I. Leo Glasser had just berated me and other reporters covering the trial for disclosing last Saturday supposedly sealed documents that somehow turned up in the public court file.

The judge said that was like taking documents from a safe, or like cashing a check sent to you by mistake. Meaning we're like thieves, too.

I was certain that a convicted hijacker like John Gotti would know the sting of such accusations, and I was right.

As the designated pool reporter, I arrived for a separate jury screening session and heard Gotti and a co-defendant joking that the next thing you know, the judge will make a motion to junk the First Amendment.

John GottiThe judge and the lawyers were in chambers having a private chat. So I told Gotti that many documents in the files are marked sealed and that we weren't sure whether these new ones were, not that it would have stopped us.

"Forget about it, if it wasn't there, the FBI would have had it there in a half an hour--whatever you want," Gotti said.

Gotti seemed to warm up after that, and for the next 40 minutes, I had what you might call the first extended journalistic discussion with as they say, "the nation's most powerful criminal."

I'm not calling it an interview, because I never fired a tough question, knowing that would be a waste of time. Our goal here was information and anecdote, not silence.

Gotti seemed to enjoy the freedom of casual chat. He asked questions about The News' former owner and why two other reporters and I had mistakenly written that Gotti received sunlamp treatments in prison.

Joe Doherty"It's not like that (in prison)," he said. "You should take a tour. I'm eating rice three times a day."

Gotti also seemed pleased to hear that another inmate, former Irish Republican Army soldier Joseph Doherty, had recently asked me when I interviewed him to say hello to Gotti when I saw him in court.

"Ah, Joe is a nice man. And honest. You ought to get him to write for you."

With my colleague, Jerry Capeci, The News' Gang Land columnist, I co-wrote a book about Gotti a few years ago; it had that nation's-most-powerful-criminal line as its subtitle.

I'm not sure Gotti realized he was talking to a co-author of that book until the end, but when he did, he smiled like it didn't matter. First Amendment issue, you know.

[Hailbritain]

Snooze fest this week

[SonnyBlackstein]

Fuckin a.


"Jackie D'Amico, a Gambino crew chief otherwise born to host a television variety show".
Though this was a smacker.

[Cheech]

Jerry back to being Jerry

[TommyGambino]

Not even going to read, stick a fork in Capeci.

[Rocco]

Thanks for posting. Horrible. What a waste. Hes the worst. Who fuckin cares about the John Gotti story. How many times is he gonna write about that moron? Everyone has heard the story 600 times. What fuckin Jerk off this guy is.

[HairyKnuckles]

It was written by Gene Mustain who authored a couple of Gotti books If Im not mistaken. But you guys are right. This one could lullaby one to sleep.

Thanks for posting though.

[Snakes]

It's not that big a deal. He's posted some good columns for what, the past three or four weeks? He has sources but it's not like they are breaking enough info for big time articles every week. I used to write for a blog and it's very difficult to think of one thing new to write on every week, let alone three.

[tmarotta]

Snakes I agree with you that it is not easy to always think of new material. However, there are current mob related stories he could discuss. For example he could have discussed how members of Nick Santora's crew just took plea deals, and what the current state of the case is. The Gotti story is so overdone and I think it is fair to assume that most of Capeci's readers know the story by heart. Just my 2 cents.

[Cheech]

Snakes I agree with you that it is not easy to always think of new material. However, there are current mob related stories he could discuss. For example he could have discussed how members of Nick Santora's crew just took plea deals, and what the current state of the case is. The Gotti story is so overdone and I think it is fair to assume that most of Capeci's readers know the story by heart. Just my 2 cents.

bingo

[Snakes]

I think he's probably gathering more info on the Santora case before he rushes a column out. He didn't immediately post on the Merlino/Parrello case, either.

[bronx]

Sounds like your capeci,

[SonnyBlackstein]

He has sources but it's not like they are breaking enough info for big time articles every week. I used to write for a blog and it's very difficult to think of one thing new to write on every week, let alone three.

Sure but, Gotti, Again?

Its a pay per view website. Which means its not going to be casual observers with little or no interest and understanding of the mafia and FFS, Gotti, just by Jerry himself, let alone the million or so other bio's/recaps has been done, to death.

He needs to understand his audience better, people who pay aren't your average joe ignorant.

There arent four thousand other topics he couldn't review given a little effort?

[bronx]

agree 100% Sonny

[Snakes]

No, I agree. Gotti is played out. Was it even like an anniversary or anything? 25 years since his convicton or something?