John Gotti

American gangster John Joseph Gotti Jr. oversaw the Gambino criminal family in New York City. He oversaw the family shortly after ordering and participating in the assassination of Gambino boss Paul Castellano in December 1985, when he was dubbed the leader of the country's most potent criminal organization.

Growing up in poverty, Gotti and his siblings were drawn to a life of crime at a young age. Aniello Dellacroce, the underboss of the Gambino family, who ran his operations out of the Queens neighborhood of Ozone Park, swiftly made Gotti one of the crime family's top earners. Gotti started to worry that he and his brother would be murdered by Castellano for selling drugs when the FBI indicted members of Gotti's crew. Gotti planned the assassination of Castellano as this anxiety persisted and as disagreement over the crime family's leadership grew.

One of the most formidable and dangerous criminal lords in the US at his height was Gotti. He was well-known during his time period for his flamboyant appearance and outspoken demeanor, which made him popular with some members of the public. While most of his friends tried to avoid attention, particularly from the media, Gotti earned the nickname "The Dapper Don" thanks to his lavish wardrobe and outgoing demeanor in front of the cameras. Three high-profile trials in the 1980s ended with his acquittal, earning him the moniker "The Teflon Don," but it was later discovered that the proceedings had been compromised by jury tampering, juror misbehavior, and witness intimidation. The investigation into Gotti, who reputedly made between $5 and $20 million year as the head of the Gambino, continued.

Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, Gotti's underboss, helped the FBI convict Gotti by turning state's evidence and testifying against him in 1991 after overhearing the boss make disparaging statements about him on a wiretap that connected them to a number of murders. Gotti was found guilty in 1992 of five murders, a murderous conspiracy, racketeering, obstructing the court system, tax evasion, illicit gambling, extortion, and loansharking. He was sent to Marion's United States Penitentiary and given a life sentence without the possibility of release. On June 10, 2002, at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, Gotti passed away from throat cancer. The former underboss of the Lucchese criminal family, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, claimed that John Gotti's actions marked the beginning of the Cosa Nostra's demise.

early years

On October 27, 1940, Gotti was born in the Bronx neighborhood of New York City. He was the fifth of John Joseph Gotti Sr. and Philomena "Fannie" DeCarlo's 13 children. His parents were both born in New York City, but because his parents were married and spent some time there, it is likely that his grandparents were from San Giuseppe Vesuviano in the Italian province of Naples. Gotti was one of five brothers who rose to prominence in the Gambino crime family; Peter Gotti was initiated in 1988 under John's leadership, and Richard V. Gotti was exposed as a caporegime by 2002. Eugene "Gene" Gotti and Richard V. Gotti were the other two brothers; John Gotti was the other and was incarcerated, so they were initiated before him. Vincent, the fifth, got started in 2002.

By the time he was 12 years old, the Gottis had relocated to East New York, Brooklyn, where he and his brothers were raised in abject poverty. His father was a sporadic day laborer. Gotti grew to hate his father as an adult for being unable to support his family. He had a habit of skipping school and harassing other kids, and at the age of 16, he quit Franklin K. Lane High School.

From the age of 12, Gotti was a member of street gangs connected to the mafia in New York City. When he was 14 years old, he tried to steal a cement mixer from a building site, but it toppled and crushed his toes, leaving him with a limp for life. After dropping out of school, he committed himself to working for the Mafia-connected Fulton-Rockaway Boys gang, where he made friends with future Gambino mobsters Wilfred "Willie Boy" Johnson and Angelo Ruggiero.

At a saloon in 1958, Gotti met Victoria DiGiorgio, his future wife, who was half Italian and half Russian. The wedding took place on March 6, 1962. DiGiorgio was previously married and had one child from that union, according to FBI records. Angela, Victoria, John Jr., Frank, and Peter were their five children. At 1962, Gotti made an effort to find employment legally as a presser in a coat factory and as a backup truck driver. But he was unable to avoid crime, and by 1966, he had already served two terms in prison.

Crime family the Gambino

Associate

Gotti started doing errands for Carmine Fatico, a capo in the Gambino family, which was then known as the Anastasia family and was led by boss Albert Anastasia, when he was still in his teens. Together with his brother Gene and a friend named Ruggiero, Gotti committed truck hijackings at Idlewild Airport. The future head of the Bonanno family and fellow mob hijacker Joseph Massino became a companion of Gotti at this time, earning him the nicknames "Black John" and "Crazy Horse." Around this time, Aniello "Neil" Dellacroce, Gotti's mentor and the underboss of the Gambino, introduced the two.

Employees of United Airlines recognized Gotti as the guy who had signed for stolen goods in February 1968; shortly after, the FBI detained him for that hijacking. Two months later, Gotti was taken into custody for a third time for hijacking while on bail, this time for stealing a shipment of cigarettes worth $50,000 on the New Jersey Turnpike. Later that year, Gotti admitted to the hijacking of Northwest Airlines and was given a three-year prison term at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary.

After receiving parole in 1972, Gotti and Ruggiero rejoined their former Bergin Hunt and Fish Club gang and continued to work for Fatico. Gotti was promoted to oversee the Bergin crew's illicit gaming, where he established himself as a successful enforcer. In 1972, Fatico was charged with loan-sharking. He was required to refrain from interacting with known felons in order to be released. Due to the Apalachin meeting's closure of the membership books in 1957, Gotti was not yet a Mafia "made man," but Fatico promptly appointed him acting capo of the Bergin crew once he was released from prison. Gotti routinely made trips to the Ravenite Social Club in his new position as underboss to brief Dellacroce on the crew's operations. Dellacroce and Gotti, who already liked each other, grew further closer during this period. They shared several traits in common, including a penchant for violence, a propensity for swearing, and a love of gambling.

When Carlo Gambino's boss, Emanuel Gambino, was abducted and killed in 1973, Gotti, along with Ralph Galione, Ruggiero, and the other members of the assassination team were tasked with finding the prime suspect, gangster James McBratney. When the squad attempted to arrest McBratney in a Staten Island pub while posing as detectives, they failed, and Galione shot McBratney to death when his comrades were able to detain him. Witnesses and a police insider both recognized Gotti as the murderer, and he was apprehended in June 1974. However, with Roy Cohn's assistance, he was able to reach a plea agreement and received a four-year prison term for his involvement in the hit for attempted manslaughter.

Massino named Gotti as the murderer of Vito Borelli, a Gambino associate who was murdered in 1975 after disrespecting then-acting boss Paul Castellano, after Gotti's passing.

When asked in 1993 how he knew at an early stage that Gotti would become a major figure in the Mafia, Remo Franceschini, a member of the NYPD from 1957 to 1991 who specialized in organized crime, responded: "He was charismatic and a leader. He wasn't a womanizer. He spent all his time with his men. He also had a very sharp mind and total recall. And he exuded toughness. There were few men who would go against

Captain

Carlo Gambino passed away from natural causes at home on October 15, 1976. Contrary to predictions, he chose Castellano over his underling Dellacroce to succeed him. Gambino seemed to think that Castellano's emphasis on white-collar companies would be advantageous to his criminal organization. Dellacroce was unable to challenge Castellano's succession because he was at the time incarcerated for tax evasion. On November 24, a meeting was held to confirm Castellano's appointment. Dellacroce was present. The customary Cosa Nostra activities of extortion, robbery, and loansharking were carried out directly by Dellacroce while he continued to serve as underboss under Castellano's arrangement. Dellacroce acknowledged Castellano's succession, but the agreement divided the Gambino family into two hostile groups.

The membership records apparently underwent a reopening in 1976. After serving a two-year sentence, Gotti was freed in July 1977. He was then promoted to replace Fatico as the capo of the Bergin crew and received a made man initiation into the Gambino family, now ruled by Castellano. As part of the concessions made by Castellano to preserve Dellacroce as underboss, he and his team reported directly to Dellacroce, and Gotti was seen as Dellacroce's protege. The crew was Dellacroce's top revenue producer under Gotti. Gotti ran his own loansharking business in addition to taking a part of his subordinates' earnings and working a no-show job as a plumbing supplies salesperson. According to unsubstantiated claims made by FBI informants in the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, Gotti apparently provided funding for heroin transactions.

With the exception of his son John Angelo Gotti, who was a mafia associate by 1982, Gotti managed to keep the majority of his immediate family away from his criminal activities.

In the notorious Lufthansa Heist at Kennedy Airport in December 1978, Gotti participated in the largest unrecovered cash robbery in history. Gotti had planned to have the getaway van smashed and baled at a Brooklyn scrapyard. According to reports, Gotti received $200,000 from the heist. Parnell "Stacks" Edwards, the van's driver, disobeyed orders and parked the car close to a fire hydrant before sleeping at his girlfriend's apartment rather than taking it to the junkyard. The NYPD was able to locate the van and collect the fingerprints of multiple robbery suspects, aiding in the investigation of the theft.

On March 18, 1980, a neighbor named John Favara drove over and murdered Frank Gotti, age 12, who was riding a family friend's minibike. The cause of Frank's death was later determined to be an accident, but when Favara went to the Gottis to apologize, Victoria attacked him with a baseball bat and made death threats. Favara was kidnapped on July 28, 1980, went missing, and was later declared dead. Despite the fact that Gotti and his family had left for a vacation in Florida three days prior to the murder, it is largely believed that Gotti ordered it.

In his final two years as the capo of the Bergin, Gotti was charged twice; both cases went to trial after he became the leader of the Gambinos. After a fight with refrigerator repairman Romual Piecyk in September 1984, Gotti was charged with assault and robbery. He was charged with racketeering in 1985 along with Dellacroce and many members of the Bergin crew by Assistant US Attorney Diane Giacalone. Wilfred "Willie Boy" Johnson, a pal of Gotti and a co-defendant, was exposed as an FBI informant in the indictment.

controlling the Gambino family

Gotti quickly lost faith in Castellano as a leader because he thought the new boss was too selfish and lonely. Like other family members, Gotti had his own specific dislikes towards Castellano. The boss lacked street cred, and people who had earned their respect working at lower-level positions on the street did not regard him. Gotti also had a financial stake in the matter because he was at odds with Castellano about the share of the proceeds he received from Kennedy Airport hijackings. Gotti was allegedly pushing into the lucrative narcotics sector that Castellano had outlawed.

Using recordings from a bug in Ruggiero's home as the main source of evidence, Gene Gotti and Ruggiero were both detained in August 1983 for trafficking heroin. Ruggiero was ordered to provide transcripts of the tapes by Castellano, who had forcibly forbidden made men from his family from distributing drugs. When Ruggiero refused, Castellano threatened to demote Gotti.

Castellano was detained and charged with RICO in 1984 for the crimes committed by Roy DeMeo's gang, a hitman for the Gambino criminal family. He was charged again for his participation in the Mafia's Commission the following year. Castellano, who was facing life in jail in either scenario, set up Gotti to pose as his boss in his absence alongside Thomas Gambino and his favorite capo, Thomas Bilotti. While this was going on, Gotti started planning to overthrow Castellano with the help of fellow disgruntled capos Frank DeCicco and Joseph "Joe Piney" Armone, as well as soldiers Sammy Gravano and Robert "DiB" DiBernardo. Gotti insisted that despite the boss' inaction, Castellano would eventually try to kill him. The backing of Armone was essential because he would give the conspirators' cause the necessary credibility as a seasoned veteran who dated back to the family's founder, Vincent Mangano.

In the Mafia, it has long been the case that a boss could only be assassinated with the consent of the Commission as a whole. The intended assassination by Gotti would have been the first unapproved attack on a boss since Frank Costello came dangerously close to death in 1957. Given that the other four bosses had a history of working with Castellano, Gotti understood that it would be too risky to ask for their assistance. He obtained the backing of several significant figures from his generation in the Lucchese, Colombo, and Bonanno families to get past this. Since Castellano and Genovese leader Vincent "Chin" Gigante had such tight relations, he decided against approaching the Genovese family because doing so would have given away his intentions. Gotti could, however, also rely on Gambino consigliere Joseph N. Gallo's cooperation.

On December 2, 1985, Dellacroce passed away from cancer, and Castellano changed his succession plan by assigning Bilotti as underboss to Thomas Gambino, who took over as the only acting boss, and dissolving Gotti's crew. Angered by this and Castellano's decision to skip Dellacroce's wake, Gotti made the decision to murder his superior. On December 16, 1985, DeCicco informed Gotti that he would be seeing Castellano and a number of other Gambino mobsters at Sparks Steak House. Gotti decided to take advantage of the information. When the boss and underboss arrived for the meeting in the evening, they were both ambushed and killed by assassins working for Gotti. Gotti and Gravano sat in his car and observed the hit.

A few days after the assassination, Gallo, DeCicco, and Gotti were selected to serve on a three-person committee to oversee the family until a new leader could be chosen. The fact that an internal inquiry into Castellano's murder was ongoing was also disclosed. The fact that Gotti was operating as the family's boss in all but name, and almost all of the capos knew it, was an open secret. On January 15, 1986, he was formally installed as the new head of the Gambino family during a conference of 20 capos. He retained Gallo as consignee while appointing DeCicco as the new underboss.

gang leader

Gotti gained notoriety throughout 1986 after being named as both Castellano's suspected murderer and his successor. The Gambino family was the most powerful American Mafia organization at the time of his takeover, earning $500 million a year. According to Gravano's estimation in the book Underboss, Gotti earned at least $5 million year and probably between $10 million and $12 million throughout his tenure as boss. Gotti forbade members of the Gambino family from accepting plea agreements that recognized the existence of the organization in order to protect himself legally.

In "The Teflon Don"

Before his trials, Gotti frequently waved and grinned at the television cameras, winning him some admiration from the public. At least one good thing came out of Gotti's newfound fame: Romual Piecyk opted not to testify against Gotti owing to Boko "The Yugo" Radonji, the leader of the Westies in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen, after learning of his attacker's profession and amid allegations of intimidation by the Gambinos. Piecyk testified during the trial's opening days in March 1986 that he couldn't recall who attacked him. It was eventually discovered that Gambino goons had damaged Piecyk's brake lines, made threatening phone calls, and harassed him before the trial. The matter was swiftly dismissed, with the New York Post describing the proceedings under the headline "I Forgotti!"

DeCicco was assassinated on April 13, 1986, when his car was bombed after he visited James Failla, a supporter of Castellano. In order to avenge Castellano and Bilotti by killing their successors, the bombing was carried out by Lucchese family members Victor Amuso and Anthony Casso on the orders of Gigante and Lucchese boss Anthony Corallo. Gotti had also planned to visit Failla that day but canceled, and the bomb went off when a soldier riding with DeCicco was mistaken for the boss. The Gambinos initially believed that "zips"—Sicilian mafiosi operating in the U.S.—were behind it since zips were well known for utilizing bombs; bombs had long been prohibited by the Mafia out of fear that it would put innocent people in danger.

Judge Eugene Nickerson, who was presiding over Gotti's racketeering trial at the time of the explosion, delayed it in order to avoid having a jury corrupted by the publicity that followed, and Giacalone had Gotti's bail revoked because there was evidence of witness intimidation in the Piecyk case. Robert DiBernardo and Ruggiero were both fighting to succeed DeCicco until Ruggiero accused DiBernardo of opposing Gotti's leadership, at which point Gotti ordered the assassination of DiBernardo by Gravano from behind bars. A dissatisfied Gotti instead promoted Armone to underboss when Ruggiero, who was also under indictment, had his bail revoked for his combative demeanor in preliminary hearings.

In August 1986, jury selection for the racketeering case reopened. Gotti, his ex-companion William "Willie Boy" Johnson, Leonard DiMaria, Tony Rampino, Nicholas Corozzo, and John Carneglia were among the defendants. When George Pape was appointed as jury No. 11 and concealed his acquaintance with Radonji, the Gambinos were able to compromise the case at this point. Through Radonji, Pape made contact with Gravano and decided to sell his jury vote for $60,000 to the latter.

Bruce Cutler, Gotti's defense lawyer, rejected the Gambino family's existence during the trial's opening comments on September 25 and painted the entire government operation as a personal vendetta. His primary defense approach during the prosecution was to question the reliability of witnesses called by prosecutor Diane Giacalone by bringing up the crimes they committed before to testifying as state's evidence. Bank robber Matthew Traynor, a potential prosecution witness who was disqualified for being unreliable, testified during Gotti's defense that Giacalone offered him drugs and her underwear as a masturbation aid in exchange for his testimony. Judge Nickerson dismissed Traynor's claims as "wholly unbelievable" after the trial, and he was later found guilty of perjury.

According to mafia writers Jerry Capeci and Gene Mustain, the majority of the jury was in favor of convicting Gotti when the jury's deliberations started, notwithstanding Cutler's defense and criticisms of the prosecution's performance. However, Gotti was aware from the start of the trial that the worst case scenario was a deadlocked jury because of Pape's misbehavior. Pape fought for acquittal throughout the jury's deliberations until the other members started to worry for their own safety. They cleared Gotti and his co-defendants on March 13, 1987, of all charges, including loansharking, unlawful gambling, murder, and armed hijackings. Five years after the fix was made, Pape was found guilty of obstructing justice and given a three-year prison term.

Gotti's acquittal was a significant surprise given past Mafia convictions, especially the triumph of the Mafia Commission Trial, and it improved his reputation. Because no accusations against Gotti "sticked," the American media called him "The Teflon Don."

Reorganization

Gotti, Gravano, Amuso, and Casso are shown in an FBI surveillance photo.

While Gotti himself had managed to avoid prosecution, his friends had less luck. The other two members of the Gambino family, consigliere Gallo and underboss Armone, had been charged with racketeering in 1986 and were both found guilty in 1987. In June of that year, Gene Gotti's former Bergin crewmates Ruggiero and Gotti also began their heroin trials.

Before they were found guilty, Gotti elevated Gravano to take Gallo's place and gave Gallo the go-ahead to retire. He also nominated Frank Locascio to take over as acting underboss in the case that Armone was imprisoned. Additionally, the Gambinos attempted to sway the heroin trial jury, which led to two mistrials. Gotti refused to get in touch with the terminally ill Ruggiero after he was severed and released in 1989, blaming him for the Gambinos' woes. Gravano claims that Gotti considered killing Ruggiero as well, and that when he passed away, "I actually had to drag him to the burial."

Against Gravano's suggestion, Gotti started demanding that his capos meet with him once a week at the Ravenite Social Club in January 1988. This action, which Gene viewed as a needless vanity-inspired risk and FBI Gambino squad head Bruce Mouw as opposed to the "secret society," allowed the FBI to record and identify a significant portion of the Gambino leadership through surveillance. Furthermore, it offered convincing circumstantial proof that Gotti was a boss, as is customary in the Mafia, where open displays of obeisance to the leader are expected. The Ravenite was also bugged by the FBI, but no clear recordings of potential evidence were found.

Later that year, at the LaBar Bat Club in Manhattan, Gotti, Gigante, and the newly appointed Lucchese chief Victor Amuso attended the first Commission meeting following the Commission trial. Future Lucchese underboss Anthony Casso was hurt in a hit by Gambino capo Mickey Paradiso in 1986. The FBI informed Gotti the next year that they obtained audio of Genovese consigliere Louis Manna talking about a new attack on Gotti and his brother. The three families' heads gathered to discuss how to avert a conflict; they denied knowing about their members' acts of aggression toward one another and decided to "communicate better". The bosses also agreed to let Colombo acting head Victor Orena join the Commission, but Gigante barred Massino and the Bonannos from reentering because he was concerned about handing Gotti a majority by admitting another supporter.

In 1988, Gotti was also successful in influencing the New Jersey-based DeCavalcante criminal organization. Gotti attended his father's funeral alongside numerous other Gambino mobsters as a "show of force," according to the DeCavalcante capo-turned-informant Anthony Rotondo, and this compelled boss John Riggi to consent to managing his family on the Gambinos' behalf. Up until Gotti's detention, the DeCavalcantes were still under the control of the Gambinos.

On Christmas Eve 1988, John Gotti Jr. was welcomed into the Gambino family. Gravano held the ceremony, according to fellow gangster Michael DiLeonardo, who was introduced the same evening, to prevent Gotti from being accused of nepotism. John Jr. was appointed capo right away.

Acquittal for assault

Gotti was detained outside the Ravenite on January 23, 1989, and was charged of ordering the attack on union official John O'Connor in 1986. "Three to one I beat this charge," Gotti said in the back of the police vehicle. O'Connor, a prominent member of Local 608 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America who was later found guilty of racketeering, is thought to have given the order to attack a Gambino-connected eatery that had disregarded the union. The restaurant was then shot and wounded by the Westies. Gotti spent one night in jail before being freed on $100,000 bond. Gotti identified himself as a salesman for a plumbing contracting business.

By November 1989, both locations had been bugged. By this point, the FBI had developed new informants and discovered that one of the reasons the Ravenite bug failed was because Gotti would hold private conversations in the rear hallway of the building the club occupied or in an apartment on the building's upper floors where a friendly widow of a Gambino soldier lived. The apartment bug was especially successful because Gotti was open about his role as family leader in meetings there. Gotti openly admitted to ordering the murders of DiBernardo and Liborio Milito in a chat with Frank Locascio on December 12. Milito was one of Gravano's partners who was slain for disobedience. He also declared his intention to assassinate soldier Louis DiBono, who had refused Gotti's request to meet with him to discuss the way he had mismanaged a drywall company he owned with Gravano. However, the FBI misheard the namedrop and neglected to alert DiBono, who passed away on October 4, 1990. Gotti elevated Gravano to underboss in a further recorded conference on January 4, 1990, choosing Gravano to be in charge of the family if he was found guilty in the assault case.

A recording of Gotti discussing O'Connor and declaring his plan to "blow him up" and the testimony of Westies criminal James McElroy were used by state prosecutors to tie Gotti to the case, but on February 9, 1990, Gotti was found not guilty of all six assault and conspiracy charges. Locals lit up fireworks displays following the trial. The FBI's organized crime division director in New York, Jules J. Bonavolonta, said, "With all this media coverage he's beginning to look like a folk hero... What the public should realize is that he is the boss of the largest Cosa Nostra family, that he surrounds himself with ruthless killers and that he is flat out a criminal." Later it was revealed, however, that FBI bugs had reportedly caught Gotti discussing plans to fix the jury as However, the FBI and federal prosecutors decided not to share this intelligence with them, much to the chagrin of Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau and state-organized crime taskforce chief Ronald Goldstock. Morgenthau later claimed that he would have requested a mistrial if he had been aware of these bugged talks.

Conviction in 1992

photographs from Gotti's arrest in 1990

The bugs positioned throughout the Ravenite frequently captured Gotti, Gravano, and Locascio discussing unlawful events. Gotti, Gravano, and Frank Locascio were taken into custody during a raid on the Ravenite on December 11, 1990, by FBI agents and NYPD detectives. In this new racketeering case, federal prosecutors accused Gotti of five murders, a plot to kill Gaetano "Corky" Vastola, loansharking, illicit gambling, obstructing justice, bribery, and tax evasion. Bail was refused for the Gambino administration based on recordings from FBI bugs that were played during pretrial hearings. The prosecution successfully argued that Cutler and Gerald Shargel were "part of the evidence" and thus could be called as witnesses, so they were disqualified from representing Gotti and Gravano. Cutler and Shargel, according to the prosecution, not only had knowledge of possible criminal activities, but also served as the Gambino family's "in-house counsel." After that, Gotti replaced Cutler with Albert Krieger, a Miami lawyer who had previously worked with Joseph Bonanno.

The recordings also caused a split between Gotti and Gravano, with the Gambino head accusing his recently recruited underboss of being too greedy and attempting to pin the deaths of DiBernardo, Milito, and Dibono on Gravano. Gravano lost faith in the mafia as a result of Gotti's unsuccessful attempt at reconciliation and began to doubt his ability to prevail in court without the assistance of his old lawyer, Shargel. In the end, Gravano chose to cooperate with the prosecution, legally pledging his testimony on November 13, 1991. Up until Joseph Massino in 2003, he was the most senior member of a New York mafia family to turn informant.

In the US, trials for Gotti and Locascio were held. Before District Judge I. Leo Glasser in the Eastern District of New York. Due to Gotti's propensity for manipulating with juries, the jury selection process started in January 1992 with an anonymous jury and was totally sequestered throughout the trial for the first time in a federal case in Brooklyn. The trial started on February 12 with the prosecution's opening statements. Andrew Maloney and John Gleeson started their case by playing tapes of Gotti discussing Gambino family business, including murders he approved, and confirming the hostility between Gotti and Castellano to establish the former's motivation to kill his boss. On March 2, they called Gravano to testify after first bringing in an eyewitness of the Sparks hit who named Carneglia as one of the men who shot Bilotti.

On the witness stand, Gravano affirmed Gotti's position within the Gambino family's hierarchy and provided a thorough account of the scheme to assassinate Castellano, including a detailed account of the hit and its immediate aftermath. Gravano admitted to 19 murders, four of which Gotti was responsible for. During the cross-examination, Krieger and Anthony Cardinale, Locascio's attorney, were unable to get Gravano to cooperate. On March 24, the government rested its case following more testimony and tapes.

Gotti's tax lawyer Murray Appleman was the lone witness allowed to speak on his defense after Krieger and Cardinale's original six witnesses were deemed unnecessary or irrelevant. Additionally, the defense made an unsuccessful attempt to have Maloney's concluding statements declare a mistrial. Throughout the trial, Gotti become increasingly combative, and Glasser once threatened to eject him from the courtroom. In addition to other outbursts, Gotti compared the discharge of a juror to the fixing of the 1919 World Series and dubbed Gravano a junkie when his lawyers attempted to disclose his prior steroid use.

After just 14 hours of deliberation, on April 2, 1992, the jury found Gotti guilty of all allegations in the indictment. The Teflon is gone. The don is coated with Velcro, and all the allegations adhered, James Fox, the ADIC of the FBI's New York Field Office, declared at a press conference. On June 23, 1992, Glasser sentenced both defendants to life in prison without the possibility of release and a $250,000 fine.

Mortality and incarceration

Picture of John Gotti following his beating by another prisoner in July 1996

At the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, Gotti was a prisoner. He was only permitted to leave his cell once a day, and he effectively spent the majority of his term in solitary confinement. The United States denied his final appeal. 1994: Supreme Court.

According to the New York Daily News, Walter Johnson, a fellow prisoner, hit Gotti on July 18, 1996, leaving him bleeding and wounded. Johnson said that Gotti had insulted him with a racist epithet. Gotti, seeking retribution, promised to have Johnson killed for between US$40,000 and US$400,000 to David Sahakian and Michael McElhiney, leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood. According to a federal indictment accusing him and 39 other gang members with murder, attempted murder, and racketeering, McElhiney instructed two Brotherhood lieutenants to kill Johnson "if given the opportunity" in August. Johnson, however, was moved to the Florence, Colorado, Supermax jail.

Gotti asserted his right to continue serving as boss until his death or retirement despite being imprisoned and being asked by the Commission to step down. His brother Peter and son John Jr. carried out his commands in his place. By the time of his racketeering indictment in 1998, John Jr. was regarded as the family's acting boss. John Jr. entered a guilty plea against his father's wishes in 1999, and was given a six-year, five-month prison term. He claims that he has subsequently parted ways with the Gambino clan. After then, Peter Gotti took over as head and is thought to have legally succeeded his brother just before Gotti's passing.

The Bureau of Prisons' final photograph of John Gotti, 60 years old, was taken on October 17, 2001, eight months before he passed away.

When throat cancer was discovered in 1998, Gotti was referred for surgery to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. The tumor was removed, but two years later it was found that the cancer had come back, so Gotti was sent back to Springfield, where he lived for the remainder of his days.

Gotti's health quickly deteriorated, and on June 10, 2002, he passed away at the age of 61. The Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn declared that Gotti's family would only be allowed to hold a commemorative Mass following the burial rather than a Requiem Mass.

The wake for Gotti was held at a place other than a church. After the funeral, some 300 spectators saw the procession pass Gotti's Bergin Hunt and Fish Club on its way to the grave. Frank Gotti's son was buried near to Gotti's body in a crypt. Due to his incarceration, Peter Gotti's brother was unable to attend. The other New York City families did not send anyone to Gotti's funeral, seemingly in rejection of his leadership and legacy. The Gambinos were completely destroyed by the several prosecutions Gotti's methods led to. By the turn of the century, half of the successful men in the family were incarcerated.