John A. Gotti
| John A. Gotti | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1964-02-14 |
| 💼 Occupation | |
Early Life[edit]
John Angelo Gotti (born February 14, 1964) is an American former mobster who was the acting boss of the Gambino crime family from 1992 to 1999. He became acting boss when the boss of the family, his father John Gotti, was sent to prison. The younger Gotti was imprisoned for racketeering in 1999, and between 2004 and 2009 he was a defendant in four racketeering trials, each of which ended in a mistrial. In January 2010, federal prosecutors announced that they would no longer seek to prosecute Gotti for those charges.
Career[edit]
According to federal prosecutors, Gotti was inducted into the Gambino crime family on Christmas Eve 1988. According to fellow mobster Michael DiLeonardo who was initiated the same night, Gravano held the ceremony to keep Gotti from being accused of nepotism. He was named a caporegime (captain) in 1990, and is believed to be the youngest captain in the Gambino family's history.
April 1992, his father, John J. Gotti, received a life sentence for racketeering and related offenses. His father asserted his prerogative to retain his title as boss until his death or retirement, with his brother Peter and his son Gotti Jr. relaying orders on his behalf.
Remembering how his father had been brought down by FBI bugs, Gotti adopted a more secretive way of doing business. He discussed mob business mainly through "walk-talks," or conversations held while walking alongside trusted captains. He also tried to pose as a legitimate businessman. However, several of his button men didn't think much of him, thinking he was incompetent. He was not nearly as good a negotiator as his father had been, and the Gambinos lost out on several disputes with the other families. The Genovese family was so unimpressed with Gotti that it refused to deal with him at all. In 1995, Charles Carneglia and John Alite were involved in a major conspiracy to murder Gotti.
In a 1997 search of the basement of a property owned by Gotti, the FBI found a typed list of the names of the "made" members of his organization, as well as $348,700 in cash, a list of the guests who attended his wedding, along with the dollar amount of their wedding gifts (totaling more than $350,000), and two handguns. Also found was a list of several men who were inducted into other families in 1991 and 1992; a longstanding rule in the New York Mafia calls for prospective members to be vetted by the other families before being inducted. However, normally these lists are destroyed almost as soon as the inductions take place. The discovery enraged Gotti's father as well as the other bosses, since it put dozens of other mafiosi at risk of government scrutiny. The episode earned him the nickname "Dumbfella" in the New York media.
In August 2008, Gotti was arrested and indicted on racketeering and murder conspiracy charges brought in Florida. The charges stemmed from an alleged drug trafficking ring Gotti operated along with former associate-turned-government witness John Alite, and with the murders of George Grosso in 1988, Louis DiBono in 1990 and Bruce John Gotterup in 1991. Prosecutors charge that the ring distributed at least five kilograms of cocaine in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Gotti's trial was later moved to New York, where he pleaded not guilty, and began in September 2009.
Gotti Jr. maintains that he has since left the Gambino family, and in a 2015 interview with the New York Daily News, Gotti denied claims that he was an informant, claiming that he did give the FBI information but that it was false information and that no indictments resulted from the information he gave agents.
Personal Life[edit]
In 1990, Gotti married Kimberly Albanese. They have six children and live in Oyster Bay Cove on Long Island's North Shore. His son, John Gotti III, is a professional mixed martial artist. Gotti authored a 2015 book, Shadow of My Father. Gotti III's biography is in the Amazon audiobook Everipedia Mob Chronicles hosted by Matthew E. O'Neil.
