Background and career
John Joseph Gotti Jr. ( GOT-ee, Italian: [ˈɡɔtti]; October 27, 1940 – June 10, 2002) was an American mafioso and boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. He ordered and helped to orchestrate the murder of Gambino boss Paul Castellano in December 1985 and took over the family shortly thereafter, leading what was described as the most powerful crime syndicate in the United States. Gotti and his brothers grew up in poverty and turned to a life of crime at an early age. He quickly became one of the Gambino family's biggest earners and a protégé of Aniello Dellacroce, the family's underboss, operating out of Ozone Park, Queens. Following the FBI's indictment of members of his crew for selling narcotics, Gotti began to fear that Castellano would kill him and his brother Gene in retribution. As this fear continued to grow, and amidst growing dissent over Castellano's leadership, Gotti arranged his murder. At his peak, Gotti was one of the most powerful and dangerous crime bosses in the United States. While his peers generally avoided attracting attention, especially from the media, Gotti became known as "the Dapper Don" for his expensive clothes and outspoken personality in front of news cameras. He was later given the nickname "the Teflon Don" after three high-profile trials in the 1980s resulted in acquittals, though it was later revealed that the trials had been tainted by jury tampering, juror misconduct and witness intimidation. Law enforcement continued gathering evidence against Gotti, who reportedly earned between $5 million and $20 million per year as Gambino boss. Gotti's underboss, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, aided the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in convicting Gotti; in 1991, Gravano agreed to turn state's evidence and testify against Gotti after hearing the boss make disparaging remarks about him on a wiretap that implicated them both in several murders. In 1992, Gotti was convicted of five murders, conspiracy to commit murder, racketeering, obstruction of justice, tax evasion, illegal gambling, extortion and loansharking. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole and was transferred to United States Penitentiary, Marion, in Illinois. Gotti died of throat cancer on June 10, 2002, at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. According to Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, the former underboss of the Lucchese crime family, "what John Gotti did was the beginning of the end of Cosa Nostra."
John Gotti was born on October 27, 1940, in the New York City borough of the Bronx. He was the fifth of the thirteen children (two had died at birth) of John Joseph Gotti Sr. and Philomena "Fannie" DeCarlo. Both of Gotti's parents were born in New York, but it is presumed that his grandparents were from San Giuseppe Vesuviano, in the Naples province of Southern Italy, because his parents were married and had lived for some time. Gotti was one of five brothers who became made men in the Gambino crime family: Eugene "Gene" Gotti was initiated before John due to the latter's incarceration, Peter Gotti was initiated under John's leadership in 1988 and Richard V. Gotti was identified as a caporegime (captain, or head of a "crew") by 2002. The fifth, Vincent, was initiated in 2002. By the time he reached the age of 12, Gotti's family settled in East New York, Brooklyn, where he grew up in poverty alongside his brothers. His father worked irregularly as a day laborer. As an adult, Gotti came to resent his father for being unable to provide for his family. In school he had a history of truancy and bullying other students, and ultimately dropped out of Franklin K. Lane High School at the age of 16. Gotti was involved in street gangs associated with New York mafiosi from the age of 12. When he was aged 14, he was attempting to steal a cement mixer from a construction site when it fell, crushing his toes; this injury left him with a permanent limp. After leaving school, Gotti devoted himself to working with the mob-associated Fulton-Rockaway Boys gang, where he met and befriended fellow future Gambino mobsters Angelo Ruggiero and Wilfred "Willie Boy" Johnson. Gotti met his future wife, Victoria DiGiorgio, who was of half-Italian and half-Russian descent, at a bar in 1958. The couple were married on March 6, 1962. According to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) documents, DiGiorgio was married previously and had one child by that marriage. Gotti and his wife had five children: Angela, Victoria, John Jr., Frank (d. 1980) and Peter. Gotti attempted to work legitimately in 1962 as a presser in a coat factory and as an assistant truck driver. However, he could not stay crime-free and, by 1966, had been jailed twice.
As early as his teens, Gotti was running errands for Carmine Fatico, a soldier in the Gambino family, then known as the Anastasia family under the leadership of boss Albert Anastasia. Gotti carried out truck hijackings at Idlewild Airport together with his brother Gene and friend Ruggiero. During this time, he befriended fellow mob hijacker and future Bonanno family boss Joseph Massino, and was given the nicknames "Black John" and "Crazy Horse." It was around this time that Gotti met his mentor, Gambino underboss Aniello "Neil" Dellacroce. In February 1968, United Airlines employees identified Gotti as having signed for stolen merchandise; the FBI arrested him for that hijacking soon after. Gotti was arrested a third time for hijacking while out on bail two months later, this time for stealing a load of cigarettes worth $50,000 on the New Jersey Turnpike. Later that year, Gotti pleaded guilty to the hijacking of Northwest Airlines cargo trucks and was sentenced to three years at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. Gotti and Ruggiero were paroled in 1972 and returned to their old crew at the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Queens, still working under Fatico. Gotti took responsibility for managing the Bergin crew's illegal gambling operation, where he proved himself to be an effective enforcer. Fatico was indicted on loansharking charges in 1972; as a condition of his release, he could not associate with known felons. Gotti was not yet a made man due to the membership books' having been closed following the 1957 Apalachin meeting, but Fatico named him acting captain of the Bergin crew soon after he was paroled. In this new role, Gotti frequently traveled to Dellacroce's headquarters at the Ravenite Social Club in Manhattan to brief the underboss on the crew's activities. Dellacroce had already taken a liking to Gotti, and the two became even closer during this time. The two were very similar—both had strong violent streaks, cursed frequently and were heavy gamblers. After Emanuel Gambino, nephew to boss Carlo Gambino, was kidnapped and murdered in 1973, Gotti was assigned to the hit team alongside Ruggiero and fellow enforcer Ralph Galione to search for the main suspect, gangster James McBratney. The three men botched their attempt to abduct McBratney at a Staten Island bar when they attempted to "arrest" him while posing as police detectives, and Galione shot McBratney dead when his accomplices managed to restrain him. Gotti was identified by eyewitnesses and by a police insider, and was arrested for the killing in June 1974. He was able to strike a plea bargain, however, with the help of attorney Roy Cohn, and was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for attempted manslaughter for his part in the hit. Following Gotti's death, he was also identified by Massino as the killer of Vito Borelli, a Gambino associate murdered in 1975. Remo Franceschini, a member of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) from 1957 to 1991 who specialized in organized crime, was asked in 1993 how he knew at an early stage that Gotti would become a major figure in the Mafia; he said, “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 him."
On October 15, 1976, Carlo Gambino died at his home of natural causes. Against expectations, he had appointed Paul Castellano, his cousin and brother-in-law, to succeed him over his underboss Dellacroce. Gambino appeared to believe that the family would benefit from Castellano's focus on white-collar crime. Dellacroce was in prison for tax evasion at the time and was therefore unable to contest the succession. Castellano's position as boss was confirmed at a meeting on November 24, with a recently-released Dellacroce present. Castellano arranged for Dellacroce to remain as underboss while directly running the family's affairs. While Dellacroce accepted Castellano's succession, the deal effectively split the Gambino family into two rival factions: Castellano's in Brooklyn, and Dellacroce's in Manhattan. In 1976, the Gambino family's membership books were reportedly reopened. Gotti was released in July 1977, after two years' imprisonment; he was subsequently initiated into the family, now under the command of Castellano, and immediately promoted to replace Fatico as captain of the Bergin crew. The crew reported directly to Dellacroce as part of the concessions given by Castellano to keep Dellacroce as underboss, and Gotti was regarded as Dellacroce's protégé. Under Gotti, the crew were Dellacroce's biggest earners. Besides his cut of his subordinates' earnings, Gotti ran his own loansharking operation and held a no-show job as a plumbing supply salesman. Unconfirmed allegations by FBI informants claimed that Gotti also financed drug deals. In December 1978, Gotti assisted in the Lufthansa heist at Kennedy Airport, the largest unrecovered cash robbery in history. He had made arrangements for the getaway van to be crushed and baled at a scrapyard in Brooklyn. However, the driver of the van, Parnell "Stacks" Edwards, failed to follow orders; rather than driving the vehicle to the scrapyard, he parked it near a fire hydrant and went to sleep at his girlfriend's apartment. Gotti mostly tried to distance his personal family from his life of crime, with the exception of his son John Jr., who was a mob associate by 1982. However, on March 18, 1980, Gotti's youngest son, twelve-year-old Frank, was run over and killed on a family friend's minibike by a neighbor named John Favara. Frank's death was ruled an accident, but Favara subsequently received death threats and was attacked by Gotti's wife with a baseball bat when he visited their home to apologize. Four months later, Favara disappeared and was presumed murdered. Accounts have differed on what was done with his body. One account said that Favara was dismembered alive with a chainsaw, and that his remains were stuffed into a barrel filled with concrete and dumped into the ocean, or buried somewhere on the lot of a chop shop. In January 2009, court papers filed by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn contained allegations that mob hitman Charles Carneglia killed Favara and disposed of his body in acid. Gotti is widely assumed to have ordered Favara's murder despite him and his family leaving on vacation for Florida three days prior. Gotti was indicted on two occasions in his last two years as captain of the Bergin crew, with both cases coming to trial after his ascension to boss of the Gambino family. In September 1984, he had an altercation with a refrigerator mechanic named Romual Piecyk and was subsequently charged with assault and robbery. In 1985, he was indicted alongside Dellacroce and several Bergin crew members in a racketeering case by Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane Giacalone. The indictment revealed that Gotti's friend and co-defendant, Wilfred Johnson, had been an FBI informant.
Gotti quickly became dissatisfied with Castellano's leadership of the Gambino family, regarding the new boss as being too isolated and greedy. Like other members of the family, he also personally disliked Castellano. The boss lacked street credibility, and those who had paid their dues running street-level jobs did not respect him. Gotti had an economic interest as well; he had a longtime dispute with Castellano on the split Gotti took from truck hijackings at Kennedy Airport. Gotti was also rumored to be expanding into drug dealing, a lucrative trade Castellano had banned under threat of death. In August 1983, Ruggiero and Gotti's brother Gene were arrested for dealing heroin, based primarily on recordings from a bug in Ruggiero's house. Castellano demanded transcripts of the tapes; when Ruggiero refused, he threatened to demote Gotti. In 1984, Castellano was arrested and indicted in a RICO case for the crimes of Gambino hitman Roy DeMeo and his crew. The following year, he received a second indictment for his role on the Commission, the Mafia's governing body. Facing life imprisonment for either case, Castellano arranged for Gotti to serve as acting boss alongside Thomas Bilotti, Castellano's favorite captain, and Thomas Gambino in his absence. Gotti, meanwhile, began conspiring with fellow disgruntled captains Frank DeCicco and Joseph Armone and soldiers Sammy "the Bull" Gravano and Robert DiBernardo (collectively dubbed "The Fist") to overthrow Castellano, insisting, despite the boss' inaction, that Castellano would eventually try to kill him. Armone's support was critical; as a respected old-timer who dated back to the family's founder, Vincent Mangano, he would lend needed credibility to the conspirators' cause. It had long been a rule in the Mafia that a boss could only be killed with the approval of a majority of the Commission. Indeed, Gotti's planned hit would have been the first unsanctioned hit on a boss of the Five Families since Frank Costello was nearly killed in 1957 and would have been the first on any boss since Angelo Bruno in 1980. Gotti knew that it would be too risky to solicit support from the other four bosses, since they had longstanding ties to Castellano. To get around this, he sought the support of several important figures of his generation in the Lucchese, Colombo and Bonanno families. He did not consider approaching the Genovese family; Castellano's ties with Genovese boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante were so close that any overture to a Genovese soldier would have been a tipoff. However, Gotti could also count on the complicity of Gambino consigliere Joseph N. Gallo. After Dellacroce died of cancer on December 2, 1985, Castellano revised his succession plan, appointing Bilotti as underboss to Thomas Gambino as the sole acting boss, while making plans to break up Gotti's crew. Infuriated by this, and by Castellano's refusal to attend Dellacroce's wake, Gotti resolved to kill his boss. When DeCicco tipped off Gotti that he would be having a meeting with Castellano and several other Gambino mobsters at Sparks Steak House on December 16, Gotti seized the opportunity. Both Castellano and Bilotti were ambushed and shot dead by assassins under Gotti's direction when they arrived that evening. Gotti watched the hit from his car alongside Gravano. Several days after the murder, Gotti was named to a three-man committee, along with Gallo and DeCicco, to temporarily run the Gambino family pending the election of a new boss. It was also announced that an internal investigation into Castellano's murder was underway. However, it was an open secret that Gotti was acting boss in all but name, and nearly all of the family's captains knew he had engineered the hit. Gotti was formally named the new boss of the family at a meeting of twenty captains held on January 15, 1986. He appointed DeCicco as the new underboss while retaining Gallo as consigliere.
Identified as both Castellano's likely murderer and his successor, Gotti rose to fame throughout 1986. At the time of his takeover, the Gambino family was regarded as the most powerful American Mafia family, with an annual income of $500 million. In the book Underboss, Gravano estimated that Gotti had a personal annual income of no less than $5 million during his years as boss, and more likely between $10 million and $12 million. To protect himself legally, Gotti banned members of the family from accepting plea bargains that acknowledged the existence of the organization.
