Original subtitles

This is a preamble to a video recording at the Medical Center for Federal

Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, on February the 5th, 1999.

The time was approximately 1 .50 p .m.

I declared myself a civilian in 1998.

I was granted a visit to go see my father.

It was a battle in cancer that was in the late stages at Springfield,

And at that point and at that meeting is when my father and I had our discussion

that I wanted to move on.

I wanted to move on with my life.

How often do you get an opportunity where you go right to your father and

say, I'm making this decision and this is why, and knowing that he's going to

resist that.

And whoever the man is that Junior is now, is because he was willing to face

that moment.

You're a CEO of General Motors and you want to resign, you resign.

But how do you resign from being in the mob?

To make my father understand, a die -in -the -wool street guy who loved and

lived by the streets, to now say that what you loved and lived by, I don't

and live by so much.

He has to tell his father, in essence, your life is not for me.

I'm parting ways with you. I'm rejecting what you stood for. I'm rejecting the

family tradition.

I want out of that.

Going to his father and telling his father, I'm done with the life, I'm out

it, is an irrelevant requirement.

You don't leave the mob.

It doesn't happen.

It doesn't happen. If you can't ever resign, you're a permanent criminal, and

that's an injustice too.

In Italian, they say that...

You cannot be a man until your father is dead.

And if you come to a decision where you're going to go against what you know

your father wants, prepare to be abandoned.

I don't think there's a place in America where we can't get a fair trial.

This room was my father's den.

He'd watch the horse racing. He'd watch all sorts of sports. He'd watch a movie

or something. He'd sit here and just relax.

All the kids would always come here. He never cared. We could have a hundred

kids in this room.

If we were happy, he was happy. That's all that mattered to him.

If people came over the house, especially on Christmas, Christmas Eve,

this is the room we'd entertain in.

So he would tell my mother, you know, he'd tell her, hey, Butch, you make sure

you cook for everybody.

She called my mother Butch. That was her nickname.

They'd take some of my mother's shrimp balls. My mother makes the best shrimp

balls. Watch the Yule Log on the TV set, fireplace, and enjoy.

I was my father's first son.

So now Frankie Boy comes along.

I see all the attention that Frankie was receiving.

Some of that attention was getting away from me. As Frankie became one, two, and

three years old, and I had a better understanding.

I became pretty protective of my brother.

As you can see, this is 70s, early 80s decor.

I mean, but we left it because we're sentimental people.

When my husband went to ask my father to marry me, my father said, my

daughter and my children are with me every holiday.

Oh, give me. Thank you.

My father loved the sense of family. He loved the holidays because the holidays

brought the family closer together.

Give Peter gifts.

Hey, give Uncle Pete gifts.

But as I've always said, my father's heart was always out in the street.

John Gotti, without question, was the most flamboyant, most colorful, most

powerful, most public.

gangster in the second half of the century in the United States. In this

many of the major industries have been dominated by organized crime for

and in only a few instances has the government been successful in combating

this. You know, multi -billion dollar vice -like grip over a lot of the

of New York and this country. The man some people consider to be organized

crime's boss of all bosses, John Gotti. He was, without question, a national

figure.

He was revered by a lot of people. What kind of a guy? Great person.

Nice job on the avenue.

Look what everybody did for him.

And privately, he was feared by a lot of people.

It always bothered me that he became this mythic figure.

You gotta remember, these people are criminals. They violate the law.

I don't apologize to you or anyone else for my affection that I have for John

Gotti, who I represented for 17 years.

It wasn't, uh...

A law -abiding type citizen, but he was the real deal.

He didn't have to watch a movie to learn how to act. He didn't have to look at

the Sopranos to learn what his life was about.

He lived his life.

John was the type of guy, if we were all sitting at the table and the guy cursed

and I was sitting there, he'd go, whoa, watch your mouth, there's a lady sitting

here. Meanwhile, I had a mouth like a sewer.

It's like a captain of a boat.

And they say as hard as it could be, he was a 24 -7 guy. He loved it. He lived

it. That's what he was.

It's intoxicating.

My father's charisma was, on a scale of 1 to 10, it was 11.

It's the charisma, the charm, the walking into a place and having that

demeanor and that confidence that...

You have to look at me because I'm here.

I'm the guy.

And I watched all the people come and go every day and gravitate to him and

circle around him and want to please him.

And I just wanted to be like him.

Most sons aspire to be like their father in some way, shape, or form.

If my father had told me, John, we're butchers. That's who we are.

So go get a smock. And I would put my smock on, I would tie it in the back,

I would start cutting the meat.

John, as a young boy growing into manhood, he would follow his father all

around. His father would be his idol.

You know, if your father was a lawyer, you might aspire to be a lawyer. In

John's situation, his father was a gangster.

The mafia has always been a part of American life and certainly a central

of New York City crime life. New York has a vast history with the five

You had five different crime families, the Gambino family, the Lucchese family,

the Colombo family, the Bonanno family, and the Genovese family.

By the decades of the 1960s, 70s, on into the 80s, the Gambino crime family

represented the leadership of the commission.

The boss of the Gambino family was Carlo Gambino. He was basically the boss of

the mafia in the United States.

There's a lot of professional criminals in the city that are operating in the

60s and 70s. But to be a member of the mafia...

was something separate and apart.

And it was something you bequeathed to your offspring. It was something that

passed on and got you with someone who was a true believer in that.

My father used to always tell my mother, I need a son, I want a son. First born

was Angel, second born was Vicky.

So now my father would be at that point of his life where he would say, you

know, when am I going to get my son?

Valentine's Day, 1964, I was born, and it was like the coming of the Messiah as

far as he was concerned.

John was born on Valentine's Day, but my mother said it was Christmas Day to us

because they finally had a son.

Growing up basically the oldest son in an Italian -American family, I was the

middle child.

I was probably my mother's favorite. At least that's what she would say. She

used to call me Kid Christmas.

She would always refer to me as her Christmas gift. That's what I was to

From the time I was, I guess, until I was 13, you know, my father had done

nine years in prison.

You know, all your friends, their fathers are around and active in their

but, you know, my father was for the most part absent.

The kids would giggle and say, you know, you don't have a father. Your father's

not coming home.

Your mother's a single parent.

I'd go home. I would share it with my mother.

Bless her heart, my mother, love her to death.

Rollers in her hair, slippers on, Vicky Gotti walking down the block and call

out the parents.

My mother protected us like a fierce mother bear.

But she made our home probably as normal as possible.

I mean, she did all the things that the other kids, their parents were doing.

Take me to my Little League games. We put a lot of emphasis on holidays.

birthdays, Christmases. We did all the things that other people would do.

It was pretty joyous, pretty joyous growing up in our house.

You know, it's very hard to compare John Gotti Sr.

with John Gotti Jr.

They're just two completely different human beings.

Their personalities were formed and created in very different crucibles. I

John Gotti Sr.

grew up in abject poverty in a tough time in a tough neighborhood where guys

like him had very, very few choices.

His upbringing in Brownsville East New York, Brooklyn, which at that

time, and to this time, is still the poorest and toughest neighborhood.

in Brooklyn and in New York City.

He was a kid that lived most of his life in the street.

He was always a fearless kid, a tough guy.

So he had a reputation.

I remember, forget the story, how my father became acquainted with Willie Boy

Johnson.

Willie Boy was an old -school tough guy.

In East New York, Brooklyn, he was a feared guy.

My father was the head of the Fulton Rockway Boys, and Willie Boy had an

crew. They were protecting this warehouse where...

Swagging things would come in and out of him.

And my father and a crew of young kids around him went in and robbed him.

So Willie Boy found out it was John Gotti, and he went looking for him.

So he's looking around East New York. Anybody know this punk John Gotti?

Tell him when I find him, I'm going to hurt him.

So now, several days later, my father walked over. As he gets closer, he

He goes, Willie Boy Johnson.

He said, I'm John Gotti. You looking for me?

He says, as a matter of fact, I am.

And with that, my father reaches in his pants, and he pulls out this broken .22

and says, I'll put two in your head right now.

He says, John, this is Willie Boy telling me now. He says, from that point

forward, I knew your father was the real deal, and he owned me since then.

By the time he had 17 years of age, he didn't have a license yet, but he was

driver for Carmine Doc Fatico, who is a very well -known, well -respected guy on

the street.

and he's in his late 40s, he chooses you to take him to the track and drive him

around.

That must say something.

Carmine Paddock was a longtime member of the Gambino family.

He was a captain in the late 60s, 1970s, and he had a crew in the East New York

section of Brooklyn called the Bergen Hunt and Fish Crew.

His job was to thought up his Cadillac and wait for him. The racing form had to

be on the seat of the car.

The old man would come out.

And he would sit in the passenger seat, read the racing form as my father drove

him to Aqueduct Racetrack.

And, you know, being so close to someone like Carmine Fatico, you're a young

kid, you get recognized very easily.

A lot of people see that John Gotti now from 16 to 17.

He's growing in stature, this guy.

Fatico moved his club to Ozone Park.

John became more important in the crew.

Carmine Fatico liked him, so he was grooming him to replace him once he

My father was basically in control over there, even though Carmine was the elder

man. But Carmine would just sit back and let John steer the ship.

Later, Fatico had some legal problems, and John actually became the acting

captain of the crew, even though he wasn't a made guy yet. His stature was

growing. Anytime he was called upon to do something, he did it.

Unwavering, he did it.

My father's first federal arrest was in 1968, I believe.

That's the year that he went away for hijacking.

They hijacked a truckload of women's dresses.

But I don't know the particulars. It's way before my time.

Street guy like that who's needing to prove himself, an organizational

way to do that is a great thing because there's a system to follow. If I apply

myself to this system, I'm going to rise up in the world.

I never asked my father why I was in prison because it didn't hit me that he

in prison, especially at that time when you're a 7 -year -old kid.

He was doing time at the federal prison in Lewisburg, PA.

Now, I remember the intimidation that my mother and I had first pulled up. You

know, he's got these large 25 -foot old stone walls.

It resembles an old medieval castle.

And you get to these intimidating steel gates, and all of a sudden they open

that first gate. It slides open, and boom, it hits.

Boom, it closes behind you.

The hack's looking down, and he says, who are you here to see?

And she says, Gotti.

I would say to my father, why when we walk out, you can't walk out with us?

come, Dad?

And he would say, well, who's going to finish building the wall?

He says, Uncle Angelo. He says, Uncle Mickey Boy. Uncle Frankie. We're all

We have to build this wall.

We've got most of it done.

We've got the back part we have to finish.

Once we're done.

Our job's done. I get paid. We get home.

I didn't know where my father was.

We were told they were working.

I said, Mom, did Daddy and Uncle Ansel build this wall? Yes, they did. Wow, we

would all sit there like, wow, look at the walls that they built.

I believed it. I don't know if anybody else in my family did. I believed it.

This notion of figura in Italian culture is what protects Italians.

If we're poor, we don't dress poorly.

If we're happy, we don't let people know how happy we are. If we're sad, we

don't let them know how sad we are. And I can tell you from my peripheral

involvement with organized crime and my family, lies build upon lies build upon

lies. And when you find out that, no, Uncle Louie wasn't killed on a golf

course, he was robbing the golf course, you begin to wonder what is real.

Who knows what kind of lies led John Gotti Jr.

to fall in love with the life that his father led.

To some degree, I think maybe Mrs. John Gotti didn't know the full breadth of

what her husband was doing, but there's no doubt that she was hoping that her

son would go a different path and that the father would cooperate in keeping

from that life. But John Gotti was a proud member of organized crime.

He fought to get there, and he was a father who wanted his son to be part of

life.

I visited my father. It was Halloween 71.

Hits me on the wrist. He says, what are you going to be for Halloween?

I says, oh, I'm going to be a cop.

Officer Mike down the street is going to loan me his hat and the cop stick, and

I'm going to be a cop.

The color came out of his face. He's looking at me, and he's staring at me,

he turns to my mother. He puts his hand in his mouth where I can't see it, and

he bites his hand.

And he says, what are you doing?

What are you doing? You got my kid talking to cops?

And she says, Johnny, he's a neighbor down the block. He's being nice.

Turns to me, puts his hand on my wrist, and tightly grabs it tight.

And he says, you listen to me.

You don't.

Talk to no cop, you don't act like no cop, and you will never be no cop. Do

understand me? Not for Halloween, not for anything. I was mortified.

I remember being teased that I didn't have a father.

And I used to tell him, yes, I do.

You know, my father's so handsome.

And nobody believed me.

And then one day, we're playing in the block, in the middle of the block, and I

remember saying, you know, my father's coming home today.

And they were all like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hey, hey, Ma, John's father's coming home today.

It was a joke. It was a joke.

About an hour goes by.

This beautiful, brand -new, chocolate -brown Lincoln Continental Mark IV

comes rolling down the block slot.

The windows come down, and I turn, and I said, there's my father. He's home.

See, I told you.

Everybody stopped.

You could hear a mouse piss on cotton.

Everybody stopped.

He says, where's the house?

I says, down the block, Dad. It's the house with the green awning.

I see over there.

Pulls into the driveway, and I run down the block.

Gets out of the car.

His head's jet black. Tony Curtis with muscles. He's beautiful.

If you could read the lips, you could see the mothers, my friend's mothers,

like, looking like, holy God, this guy's a movie star.

He turns and looks down the block like he was royalty. He gets a regal wave and

walks up the stairs and in the house.

And that was his entrance back into our lives.

He took each one of us into the room, and he sat and talked to each one of us

about what was school like, what was going on in our lives.

He was that kind of a father.

He says, come on, let me see where you sleep.

He wants to see, he wants to start digesting as much as he can about me.

And he sees a Met poster on the wall.

And he says, are you a Met fan?

I says, yeah.

He says, I'm a Yankee fan.

Gives me a kiss on top of the head. He walks out, and then he walks into the

room with my mother.

And I stood for a second, and I stared for a bit at the poster, and I just

walked over and tore it down.

I like what he likes. That's it.

I don't place a lot of stock when people say of guys like Gotti, well, he was a

good family man.

History is filled with good family men who did horrible things, who killed

people and tortured people and humiliated people.

It's not uncommon for people who were good family men to be diabolical

criminals.

Jimmy McBratney was an Irish gangster from Staten Island that started

mafia guys and holding them for ransom and getting paid.

They kidnapped Manny Gambino, who was first or second nephew of Carlo Gambino.

believe it was in 1973.

Carlo Gambino receives this information, fears for the safety of his nephew,

makes the decision to pay the ransom.

The ransom was paid.

They still killed the kid.

So now Carlo Gambino, the most powerful mobster in New York and his entire

organization, wants revenge.

Every group in the city had put together search and destroy teams to hunt this

whole crew down.

It was the final straw, and they were going to kill them all.

At that time, John Gotti ran the Bergen Hunt fish group, and he was sitting with

other maid guys, even though he wasn't a member of the Cosa Nostra.

He was recognized as a strong leader, a vicious guy.

These are a bunch of criminals.

And John was the best criminal in that crew.

My father was tasked with representing Carlo and finding these individuals and

killing them.

So when Gotti and his crew are out looking for McBratney and his

crew, they do so under the guise of being cops.

My father was going to sit back and watch things unfold.

He didn't look the part of a cop.

Angelo Ruggiero walked in with Ralphie Galeone, McBratney, who's by the bar

drinking, big hulking guy, tough guy.

Angelo ID'd himself as a detective.

It says, James McBratney, you have to come with us for questioning.

McBratney looked at him.

He looked back at his drink. He says, you clowns ain't cops.

His father's sitting back, and he's watching this, and he finally, at some

point, he says, enough. He gets up. He walks over and shot him dead right there

in the bar.

The barmaid is picking the phone up, and my father put the phone down.

He puts the phone down, and then they turn and walk out.

It becomes known to law enforcement that Gotti and his crew were involved, and

so they are wanted, and they are forced to go on the lam.

When you are a mafia guy and you go on the lam, you have a network of

and contacts in different cities to help you out.

He was...

on the lam for years and played in the hockey league. So he would sneak to come

see me play hockey.

The car would pull up, and he would sneak behind the schoolyard, and he

sit there and watch.

He'd watch for 15, 20 minutes, give me the nod, jump in the car, and he would

pull away.

Now I'm a teenage kid. I'm 11, 12, 13 years old.

Now you know. You pretty much have the idea now.

I knew where I was at. I knew where he was at.

I didn't know it at the time, but, you know, my mother will tell you the story.

My uncles would pick her up and take her wherever she could meet my father.

And that's how my brother Peter was conceived.

I had asked my dad and my mom at different periods of my life, and I

know, he said, why do I love the rain so much? I don't like sunshine.

And he laughed, and he said, well.

But maybe it was because it was storming out the night we conceived you.

It was a very spontaneous, stormy night, and here I am.

Eventually, Gotti is apprehended, and the means by which they are apprehended

has to do with another longtime friend of Gotti's, Willie Boy Johnson.

After McBratney's killing, my father was hiding out in Pennsylvania in the

Poconos.

And Willie Boy Johnson had a problem.

He had assaulted some guy that was close to other individuals on the west side,

and they were looking for Willie Boy's life.

My father came in from hiding, considered a sit -down, and saved Willie

life.

Gotti came to the sit -down, and it was a sting, and he was arrested by New York

cops and the FBI.

I always used to say to myself, yeah, one day I'm going to have my own jail

stories. So we all understood it.

You understood what was going on. You know, that's how it worked.

Gotti has been apprehended by authorities.

Carlo Gambino takes a particular interest in this case.

He feels a vested interest in taking care of his boys. One of the ways you do

that is you get them good legal counsel.

Carl had hired Roy Cohen to represent my father in the McBratney murder.

Roy Cohen is a vicious, tough lawyer.

He had represented a lot of mob figures in his career as an independent criminal

defense lawyer.

Gadi is able to plead guilty to a lesser charge, not a murder charge, and get a

sweet deal where he does a limited amount of time.

When my father was in jail, We moved in 74 to Howard Beach.

Howard Beach was a street life stronghold.

We have a certain code. We don't talk to cops. We deal with our own problems.

We know how to protect each other, and we cover for each other. That my father

was away in prison was not unique.

Other individuals, fathers, uncles, cousins were in prison as well.

And a lot of the guys in the neighborhood of Howard Beach were

each other.

Everybody had their partners. Everybody had their group of guys that they hung

with. So when one fell, five guys went to jail at the same time. So when

a void in my house on Christmas, my father's not there, at least two other

friends of mine are having the same void.

You know, that's how it worked.

It looked and sounded like a movie, pallbearers carrying the casket of a man

feared and loved in the world of organized crime.

He was Carlo Gambino, a man who looked to some more like an uncle than a

godfather. Inside, he was eulogized as a good man.

Outside, neighbors talked of Gambino and his late wife.

They were well -loved. They weren't feared by anybody.

In fact, he was well -respected around here.

In 1976, an event takes place. It creates a seismic shift, and that's the

of Carlo Gambino.

He dies in his bed of natural causes, so you would think that that might bring

about a less tumultuous shift in power in the family, but it winds up being a

very bumpy transition of power.

Neil Delacroix was one of the most respected figures in organized crime. He

the underboss of the family.

and everyone assumed that the leadership of the family would be taken over by

him.

Delacroix was like the old -time mafioso in the family. He had the club with the

Ravenite. Ravenite Social Club, which was the Gambino family headquarters, all

the members and the capos had to come and had to report to them. Literally

-respected, but a tough, tough individual.

In the minds of many, Delacroix is the likely successor to Carlo Gambino.

He's the guy who deserved it at that point.

The decision is made to go with Paul Castellano as the new boss of the

crime family.

Gambino arranged for his brother -in -law and first cousin, Paul Castellano,

take over the leadership of the family. Many thought that Delacroix would rebel

against this. These are two very different personalities.

Paul was, he was a legitimate businessman.

Paul Castellano was not very well liked by the truer tough guys in the family.

He wasn't a tough guy, a real street guy. A lot of the guys that were in

legitimate businesses liked him because I guess they thought the whole family

was going to become legitimate someday.

But that's a fairy tale. It can't happen.

There's too many street tough guys that are going to run the show.

My father came home in 1977.

Just a few of us here had a greeting when he came home.

It's the way he wanted it, because his homecoming wasn't here. His homecoming

was by the Bergen Hunt Fish Club.

So that's where all the fellas were.

That's where he stopped first before he came home.

Gotti had just been released from prison. He had been in prison for a good

of the mid-'70s, and he came back to Queens and was taking over his crew, and

had a reputation as a real up -and -comer.

Once he killed McBratney and did his time, as soon as he got home, they

him in the family and he became the full -time captain of the crew.

Castellano had capos reporting to him.

Delacroce had other capos reporting to him. The Gotti crew reported to

Delacroce.

Neil was someone that my father totally respected.

He sort of viewed Neil as sort of like his surrogate father.

Delacroce was a guy who, in Gotti's mind, had all the qualities that you

want to have to be a respected and feared mob boss.

John was mercurial. He was tough.

He was extremely aggressive.

He wanted to be the boss.

He had to take care of Castellano before Castellano took care of him.

It's just a matter of survival.

My father came home when I was 13. I was still in junior high school. I started

high school at 14 years old, and school wasn't for me. So I became what's called

a constant truant.

Back then in high school, they would send these little yellow cards to your

house.

And I made a hook with the mailman that I told him, every time one of those

cards comes to the house, if you give it to me, I'll give you $2 every time.

Those cards were coming fast and furious to my house, and this guy had a nice

little racket gun with me.

My mother never received one of my absentee cards.

She gets a phone call several months into the school year, and the dean has

to my mother that, we're just calling to inquire about your son.

Is he okay?

She says, sure he is. Why would he not be okay?

She says, well, we haven't seen him in months.

You haven't seen him in months?

I watch him every morning leave the house to get on the bus. What are you

talking about?

Well, we don't know where he's going when he gets on that bus, but he's

certainly not coming to Beach Channel High School.

When I got home, She opened me up.

My mother was shorter than I was, and she was just throwing wild punches,

haymakers, body blows, and everything else that she could muster up. And she

says, this is only the beginning.

When your father walks to that door tonight, it's on.

And he's only home at this point, you know, maybe six months or so. You know,

comes in my room, get up, inside.

So I follow him into his den, and he says to me, he says, I don't understand.

What do you want to be, a Dunsky in your life?

You think by not going to school you're going to accomplish something?

You want people to laugh at you?

Or you want to leave your mark in a positive way, John?

I says, I want to leave my mark in a positive way. I just don't like school.

You have to go to school. It's not an option.

Now, I'm surprised at this point because usually this guy, I'm expecting to roar

like a lion.

He's being understanding.

He says, look, then your only option is I'll send you to military school.

I says, I'd rather go there.

Deal. And that was it.

I said, where am I going?

He says, New York Military Academy, Cornwall on Hudson. That's where you're

going.

You had a lot of well -known figures at that school.

Donald Trump graduated class of 64.

Francis Ford Coppola, I believe, graduated from that school as well.

But you had also a lot of street figures. A lot of their sons and

to that school as well.

So I wasn't unique. There were plenty more just like me.

My father would come up, and when he did that, I'd be like, surprised.

He's here to see me.

It wouldn't be so much he was there to see me, because at the same time,

Patriarca, who was a well -known figure in the Rhode Island and Boston

underworld, he would be there with his grandson. They would walk and talk and

their thing, and then my father and I would go into town spending the rest of

the afternoon together.

1979, they were doing a profile on the garment center.

I'm in the day room, and all of a sudden they profile, I see my father, and he

says, and this man right here is a fast -rising captain in the organization,

John Gotti. You got the surveillance shot of him, and he's holding court in

front of the Ravenite, and you see, you know, he's gesticulating, and he's

motioning, and you can see he's John.

All of a sudden, everybody in the room stops, and they're all looking, and the

one kid turns and says, he's got the same name as you.

And another kid says...

I seen him here.

John, that's your father.

And I'm like, yeah, that's my father.

That opened my eyes more than anything else.

I was in the gym.

I was captain of the boxing team. And I was in the ring. I was boxing.

And I turn and look.

And there's two of my father's friends.

They're just standing there looking at me.

And they had a daryl look on their faces.

I pulled off my gloves, and I walked over to them and says, you got to go

You got to go home.

I says, why?

Your father needs to see you.

And I said, this can't be good.

And when I pulled in front of the house, I seen a lot of people, a lot of cars.

It was a dark place, and they told me, wait here.

I can't go in my own house.

I see my father walking out.

He said, let's take a walk.

I take a walk.

And he says to me, he says, your brother had a little accident.

Okay.

Which brother?

Brother Frankie.

And then he tells me.

He says, Frankie's dead.

I've got so many fond memories in this house, but it's hard because they're

overshadowed by my brother's death.

It was in this house is where Frankie died, only three blocks north of here.

So all the joy I can think about living in this house, that overshadows it. I

continuously come back to that.

I keep coming back to Frankie's death.

March 18th, 1980, Frankie Boyd, he walked out through that door, walked

this walkway, walked three blocks over, and was killed.

I have a hard time getting past that.

The early 80s, a neighbor of John Gotti, a guy named Favara, mistakenly or in an

accident hit his son. He was driving a moped, and he was killed.

That's when Angelo Ruggiero and my father are in the funeral home.

And my father's cleaning my brother and getting him ready for his wake.

And, you know, he's in a bad place.

And Angelo's saying, you know, who knows, Johnny, why God does these

my father just wanted to bite Angelo's head off.

He had said, God, there ain't no God.

This kid's 12 years old. He ain't even got hair on his... My son's laying here.

There ain't no God. Don't you ever say that to me again.

I'll say it.

Who knows why God does those things?

Why that man was driving down that street at that time, at that moment, and

sun was setting at that moment, and Frankie Boy was in that place at that

moment. Who knows?

My mother was on Valium. She was drugged up, basically, for the whole week. She

was just drugged up. She was just sitting there, a basket case.

In fact, you know, after the first day of the week,

3 o 'clock that morning, broke into the funeral home.

She smashed the front door down with a hammer because she said Frankie Boy was

cold. She was bringing him a blanket.

Throughout that whole week, my father wouldn't show any emotion.

He stood in front of Frankie Boy's casket, and he would greet everybody,

after another.

He would greet them like the soldier that he was, and he would grab their

and turn towards his son, and he would comment.

Isn't he beautiful?

And I couldn't understand. I said, am I that much inferior to him?

I can't keep it together.

If I walk up there and mention him to anybody, I'm going to cry.

And he's a soldier.

You think he's talking about a fallen comrade? Not his son, not his baby

in that coffin.

I said to myself, either he's that strong or he has no feelings.

It all came to me, you know, a few nights later. It was all over.

Everything was done.

And the smoke cleared.

I heard one night the door open up.

And he went in the room.

And I hit a chair pulling out.

And the fireplace was on.

And he just sat there.

And then he just began to cry.

And that was it.

He was going to cry on his time, on his terms.

He wasn't going to show that weakness to anybody.

Now I said, this is a man with a lot of feelings, but he can control his

emotions. He can control his emotions. He's in control of him.

When Frankie had passed, I killed myself every day.

I didn't let him hang out with me. I didn't let him play with me. I didn't

him come out with me and my friends.

And I just beat myself up for years.

I just couldn't peel myself away from the cemetery. I'd go all the time and

constantly find myself sitting in front of his tomb and apologizing for not

letting him be closer to me.

And that's something that's always haunted me.

John was a different person after my brother Frankie died.

John just hardened up.

You know, he became distant to most of the world around him. You know, he just

had this unbelievably amazing void inside him. You know, he never

buried my brother.

After my brother died, my mother wouldn't sit outside, you know, in the

the house after that happened.

We used to just try to get her to get some fresh air. You know, Vicki, come

let's go out in the yard.

Gotti's wife took it very badly. She threatened the neighbor a few times. He

getting other death threats on the phone.

And he, who our yard touched, was having a party.

And the music was blasting, and, you know, and then she's hearing him.

I thought she was going to climb the fence.

you know, get her in the house. We had to get her in the house. My mother had

enough.

So it was like, you know, just building and building.

And one day she just went after him. She went after him with a baseball bat.

And he was running around the car, running away from her, which, you know,

that he said to her, what was your effing son doing on that bike to begin

And then that was it.

That was it.

In 1980, Dottie's 12 -year -old son was killed when he ran out in front of a

neighbor's car.

Within weeks, the neighbor disappeared.

He has never been found, and detectives say they don't expect to solve the case.

So a few months after it happened, John goes to Florida on vacation.

A couple days later, the victim, a guy named Favara, he was having lunch at a

diner. And a van pulled up, and three or four guys grabbed him out of the diner

in broad daylight, beat him up with baseball bats, shot him in the back of

van, and they took off.

Initially, when Nassau County Detectives did the crime scene, they had several

witnesses who saw the whole thing.

The next day, once they realized this was a mob abduction or kidnapping, if

will, all the information dried up and nobody saw nothing. So nobody ever

testified as to who actually did it.

I grew up with his son.

I knew his son.

I knew the family very well.

I liked the family. I liked the son. He was one of my closer friends growing up.

Literally, our yards almost touched.

Literally.

But my mother, she would say, John, let me tell you something.

I didn't want to get up after I lost him.

Your father made me get up. If it wasn't for your father, I'd be dead. I would

have taken my own life, okay?

Your father stopped me several times. Your father saved me.

You know, it was tragic all the way around.

To me, as a kid, to go on a Saturday with my father to the Bergen was

I looked forward to.

If you gave me an option, okay, Saturday we're going to go see the Planet of the

Apes marathon at the Canarsie Theater, or you can go to the Bergen Hunt Fish

Club with your dad.

I'll go with daddy.

There was always something happening. It was always full of life.

Everybody would walk over to me. What are you doing, Junior? You okay?

They'd pull out knots and he would peel off a single or a five and whatever.

At the end of the day, I have a knot like this.

So I jump in the car with my father and drive home.

And I reach in and I pull out. I go, look what I got.

He said, you did pretty good today.

I says, but I don't understand.

How come every time I come here, all these guys give me money?

He said, because they like you, John.

He said, just because they like me, they give me money? He says, then why not?

Why not?

How else to show their affection and appreciation?

You deserve it.

I didn't question it. I put the knot back in my pocket, and that was it.

I don't think there's a place in America where we can get a fair trial.

There was

this

phrase that was going on during immigration. It was called emigrante

Either you leave or you stay and you fight the powers that made your life

miserable. Italy was a country that was occupied.

Governments were always changing, whether it was the Spanish or the French

even the Arabs in Sicily. And so when you're occupied, you have foreign forces

controlling your behavior, watching your behavior, the surveillance.

And so the only way the Italians could maintain a sense of control was by

maintaining the family.

It was the way life was organized, and they took care of each other.

We're going to do illegal things.

We're going to do everything this way.

Sure, there were the gangsters who the police were after, but everybody

supported them.

Sicilians are not people who prey on each other. They're trying to figure out

ways of gaining power.

And when you come from a country where you can't expect to live a better life,

What's the quickest way to go from one to the other? Is it working every day,

the American dream, the way 99 .9 % of the Italians did it? Or the way that

little fraction did it with a gun in their hand?

One of the differences between the Italians and the Jews and the Irish

The Jews and the Irish always saw the criminal life as a means to an end and

that you did not want your kids to be involved in it. You were using

and crime as a way up and out of the gutter.

The Italians had this cultural tradition called the mafia, which was a proud

tradition, and it was something that you passed on to your children.

It was June 5th of 82, and I graduated from New York Military Academy.

Beautiful spring day. They call my name, and I go up, and I get my diploma, and

I had salute the general.

General Robertson turned, and I walked off the stage, and I remember seeing him

in the background, like this here, my friend, just like this here, and he had

smile on his face, and I just went... In other words, like, you kept your

promise.

After that, I came home, and...

My father and I had a discussion, and he asked me basically what I wanted to do.

And I said, I'm looking to have a career in the military.

My father really wasn't so keen on me having a career in the military. He

look, take a little time. Think out your next move.

There's no rush.

And I did.

But that's where my problems began.

One night, it was in March of 1983, and we decided to go to a local bar.

And, you know, you have to understand something. You're living in that

neighborhood. And you're always trying to measure up, and it's almost

to measure up to a John Gotti. So you're always trying to, you know, prove

yourself.

In that bar, that night, this individual kept coming over to me and kept

pestering me, wanted to buy me a drink. Let me buy you a drink. And he pokes me

and says, I don't want your drink. I'm okay, I'm okay, pal.

Let me buy you a drink, let me buy you a drink.

I'm okay, pal.

I'm okay.

By the third or fourth time he came over to me, he says, How come I can't buy

you a drink?

I had a beer mug, which I turned and smashed him right in the head with the

mug. And that jumped the place we were fighting.

It was total, total chaos.

You're talking about a dark, dingy bar, tight bar, well over 100 people, maybe

150 people in that bar.

Everybody started fighting.

I was cut with a beer bottle in my left hand and threw my jacket in the back. I

was stabbed in my elbow.

So I went home and patched myself up, finally fell asleep about 6 a .m., and

father comes down and bangs on the door and opens the door up.

He says, hey, boy, get up.

And I was stunned.

Maybe he'd seen blood inside the kitchen or whatever.

I jump up, and I'm still a little wobbly, and he says, you have a fight

night?

I says, yeah.

Somebody die?

I says, no.

No? get up, get your clothes on right now.

And he's got his bathrobe on, and my mother's coming down the stairs, and she

hears him screaming, and he's got me by the elbow, and he pulls me out, opens

the door, and he throws me out of the house. He says, get the f*** out of

Don't come back here. Get out. And my mother's crying, saying, what are you

doing? What are you doing?

You keep your mouth shut.

I got in my car, and I drove to Angelo Ruggiero's house.

And he said, let's look into this.

And sure enough,

A young man did die.

At that point, you know, I was basically forced into, like, an isolation for

several months.

When I was allowed to come back around by my father, my father wouldn't let me

out of his sight.

He made me stay in the Bergen Hunting Fish Club.

That's where I had to stay so he could watch me.

My job was to get up, drive over to the club, park my car, and sit there on the

couch all day. That was my job.

Every day I'm there, I was sulking the chair.

This would be me. I would sit in the chair and I would sulk and watch things

coming and going.

But then, you know, as time went on, I wanted to be there. He could have told

me, okay, you're released from your punishment.

It didn't matter. I wanted to be there. I would come on my own.

You'd just seen so many things, so many interesting characters.

You'd have Patty the bookmaker around the corner taking action.

Guys running in and out. We had the satellite on the roof so you could see

horse racing, live, the live call, which nobody had that back then.

So it was always teeming with life.

There were always individuals coming and going, and colorful guys.

Guys with these fancy cars, always had fancy cars coming and going, always

dressed apart.

We had a guy named Pauly Shoes.

Pauly, I need the Pierre Cardin's.

I'm going to a wedding next week.

Next week?

All right, give me four or five days, I'll have them.

And he came back with your stuff.

He'd pull up.

The long Cadillac, he popped the trunk, and he had the Pierre Cardin shoes in

the trunk of the car.

You're a 19 -year -old kid, you know.

You're taking this all in, and you're starting to develop those mannerisms. I

started buying the Pierre Cardin shoes.

I started wearing the LeBaron slacks.

And I was basically taking on the image of my father.

It was intoxicating. My father was very easy to idolize. I couldn't get enough

of him.

I never went on to college, never went on to the military.

I stood right there, and I never left.

My father was born in 1940 in a large family that they had lived in a couple

-room apartment.

My uncle would have the duty of going out and getting things to burn in the

furnace to keep the heat going.

When my father was a kid, he said his father would come home, you know, drunk,

wake him up, and give him a beat and light him up and tell him, just in case

think about doing something bad.

So it was a preemptive beat, and he used to get it on a regular basis.

He was a kid that lived most of his life in the street.

He was put in a home at 13 years of age because my grandmother couldn't handle

all the kids.

Then my father had an accident. He ran over a cement mix and crushed both his

feet. But he was always overcoming certain obstacles in his life.

So he had a tough, tough upbringing, and he can relate to my mother's tough

upbringing.

My mother had one of the hardest lives of any individual that I've ever come

across in my life.

She came from a broken home.

She was dropped off at a boarding school as a little kid. She was abused by nuns

in the boarding school and fell in love with a man. He's continuously in and out

of prison, always in trouble, and she understood his lifestyle.

The commonality between the two of them is they both had...

Tough childhood.

My mother was very young. She applied for a job in a club or a bar,

and she had to wait for the owner to come, and she was sitting in a booth,

my father had walked in with one of his friends, and a guy started hitting on my

mother. So my mother just got up.

and walked over to my father and his friend and said, can I sit here?

They said, sure, sit.

And he asked her, what are you doing here?

And she said, I'm applying for a job.

From there, she didn't get the job, but she got him.

These were two people that said to each other, we're underdogs, we got each

other's back, all the way to the end.

The Gambino crime family became by far the most powerful crime entity,

in New York City, probably in the United States of America.

Gambino family had something like 2 ,500 members, according to law enforcement.

In 1980, the FBI created five squads, basically one squad for each organized

crime family. So we had a Lucchese squad, Gambino squad, Genovese squad, et

cetera. We had an office in Queens.

And we were responsible for all Gambino family investigations.

We looked at all the different captains of the family. We looked at the boss,

the underboss.

And one of our most obvious targets was John Gotti, who was the captain in

charge of the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club.

And the reason we picked Gotti was because he was very active in the

we had the most informants around him. So we had great coverage on him as to

what he was doing.

And we realized one of the weak points in his crew was his number one guy,

Andrew Ruggiero. Also called him Quack Quack.

Ruggiero was a FBI just a like. He talked a lot. He was a big gossip, and

story was that if you dialed any seven -digit number in New York, chances are

Angelo would answer it.

He's about to exit. No, he is exiting.

Looks like he's going to come around and out the other time.

In the early 1980s, we did electronic surveillance with the FBI of Angelo

Ruggiero, and we came up with a great deal of intelligence information and

incriminating conversations, and they were constantly talking about Gotti.

My Uncle Angelo and my father were very close.

They were brothers.

They did everything together. They even went to prison together. We would visit

them. But all my life, he was just my Uncle Angelo.

Ruggiero was running a major narcotics enterprise out of his house.

There was a small dining room right next to his kitchen where he would sit there

and meet and have coffee with members of the crew.

other LCN members, other drug dealers.

We put a bug in the dining room, and that became just a goldmine for us. You

could hear his wife in the kitchen washing the dishes, but actually they're

talking about kilos and heroin and dope.

Drugs were taboo. Obviously, ratting is taboo. Sleeping with somebody's wife is

taboo. But as the years went on, our crew got...

into drugs. And it was a rule that I think we should have listened to and not

got involved in.

There's this edict that is put out by Paul Castellano, the boss of the Gambino

crime family, that the organization will not be involved in narcotics.

Meanwhile, a bunch of members in the crew are involved in narcotics, and

a wiretap by the FBI. It comes out that the Gambino family is deeply involved in

the cocaine and heroin business.

Ultimately, it would be one of the things that would undermine and bring

the Gambino family.

My father was dead set against drugs.

My father was the most surveilled man in the country for the years that he was

free. Never could they ever link my father with drugs.

He gave me a talk that if I ever even thought about doing drugs,

he would make me disappear.

The U .S. Attorney's Office says it has broken the back of the Gambino crime

family, a series of indictments against what it calls the hierarchy of the

largest organized crime family on the Eastern Seaboard.

So in 83, we indicted 60 members of Gotti's crew, including his brother Gene

his number one guy, Andrew Gerio.

When Castellano learned of the indictment of the Gotti crew members on

charges, he wanted to hear the tapes. He wanted to find out whether the members

of these guys who had been indicted, whether they had violated the family's

edict against narcotics trafficking.

And the result would be that they would be killed.

And the government would have loved that opportunity to have linked my father to

drugs, to be a drug dealer, to further besmirch his name, to bring him down

further into the gutter. As much as they tried, they could not.

That he knew were other guys in the streets involved in drugs? Yeah, sure

were. But John Gotti was not.

Castellano gets a copy, an actual copy of the transcript of that wiretap before

it's even released to the public. And he believes that John Gotti has to know

that his crew, his organization is involved in the cocaine business.

If that's true, John Gotti would be killed.

Today, the power of organized crime reaches into every segment of our

But too often, the efforts against the mob have resulted in only temporary

gains. The time has come to make these gains permanent. The time has come to

cripple the power of the mob in America.

Thank you very much.

So in 83, our target was John Gotti, but he never came to the house to talk on

the wire, and he was never actually involved in the narcotics deal. So

we believe, he may have gotten a piece of the action, he may have financed

but we couldn't prove it based on our wire.

Gotti was very clever. Gotti was never at Ruggiero's house, he was never

intercepted, there were many conversations about him, but we were

get sufficient evidence on Gotti based on the Ruggiero tapes.

That led to our going up with the FBI on the home of Paul Castellano, and

Castellano would sort of hold court up there in a sort of hideaway up on the

of Toad Hill in Staten Island.

Castellano found out that the probable cause for the bug in his house was based

on Angelo's wire, Angelo's big mouth. John Gotti would tell Castellano, it's

BS, the government fabricated this, there's nothing to it, it's all a

plot. So the two of it are still made.

And during this time, the intermediary for all this was Neil Delacroix.

Neil Delacroix was a longtime underboss of the Gambino family.

He was particularly close to Gotti, who was his protege. Gotti went to Neil

Delacroix hoping he could intercede, but other events took over that made the

transcripts actually seem like a pretty insignificant thing in terms of how it

ultimately played out.

Two dozen federal, state, and city law enforcement officials crowded the

platform today to help the Justice Department announce that it was taking

mob. So what happens in the midst of all of this is Paul Castellano gets

indicted on a big case, the commission case.

So now Paul's got bigger problems other than just whether or not members of his

family are dealing narcotics.

Jury selection began today in New York in the trial of the commission.

The handful of men who law enforcement officials say...

ran the mafia in this country.

The commission case was unlike anything that had ever been seen before. It's an

attempt to cut the head off of the organization at the very top.

You indict Paul Castellano, you indict Anthony Fat Tony Salerno. These are the

all -stars of the mafia in New York. Very few people would have the audacity

even attempt such a prosecution. The person who did it was a relatively young

prosecutor.

Rudolph Giuliani.

This is a great day for law enforcement, but this is a bad day, probably the

worst, for the mafia.

Rudy Giuliani was out to get the mafia for a number of reasons. One, in

fairness, he's a dogged prosecutor.

But secondarily, it was also a way for him to elevate his own profile.

This is a very significant case. It's a very big breakthrough. It's the biggest

case we've ever made.

Giuliani had unlimited ambitions in terms of what he was trying to do with

career.

being Italian -American, had a certain appeal in the sense that his motives

above reproach. He could not be accused of going easy on

Italians. So he saw himself as kind of an avenging angel.

I may be a lawyer, but I think that Giuliani, if that's his name, I don't

know if that's his name,

68 years of life.

The worst. The worst.

He's a torture man, but so are others.

It puts Castellano in a vulnerable position when you're facing criminal

that recasts your standing in the criminal world. If he doesn't beat the

charges, who's going to take over as boss?

neighbors, and associates.

Turned out in Little Italy today to say farewell to Agnolo Della Croce, the

powerful and feared underboss of the Gambino crime family, died in a Queens

hospital the night before last.

Della Croce dies of cancer and there's a major funeral in his honor.

My father always had so much love and respect for Agnolo Della Croce, whereas

that there was a tremendous void there regarding Paul Castellano.

It was always the understanding that Neil is the guy that's been around so

years, and he's paid his dues, that he would be my father's and

everybody's superior.

And when that didn't play out, that didn't sit well with my father. It never

did. The Gotti crew at this point doesn't have great faith in Castellano.

he's going to bequeath his power to a successor, it's not going to be John

Gotti.

When you have Paul Castellano and you have my father, you have John Gotti,

are two very different personalities.

John Gotti was raised in the gutter. He was a street guy. For you to control my

father, he had to know in his mind and his heart that you cut your teeth the

same way he cut his teeth. My father had found such a character in Neil de la

Croce because he was a real deal stone cold tough guy as opposed to Paul who

not a tough guy.

Paul was never known to have done a tough guy thing. He was a businessman. A

tough guy, a real street guy, will respect a successful businessman second.

He's going to respect a fellow tough guy like himself who's going to be in the

trenches like him first.

So John Gotti and his...

People take the bull by the horns, and they begin to devise how this is all

going to play out to their advantage.

Neil Delacroce had just died from cancer, and he was the one who was

Gotti down. And when he died, that allowed Gotti to be unleashed.

Once Neil died, they decided to go ahead and execute the plan. They learned that

same day that Castano was going to have dinner at Sparks Steakhouse.

About 5 .30 this evening, right at this location, 46th Street, east of 3rd

Avenue, two people were shot numerous times.

The tentative identification is that it's Paul Castellano and Tom Bellotti.

Big Paul Castellano, reputed godfather of the Gambino family and the man

considered boss of all mob bosses in the country, was on his way to a Manhattan

steakhouse. As he stepped from his black Lincoln, three men wearing fur hats and

trench coats suddenly appeared, pulled guns, pumped six bullets into Castellano

and six into his top couple, Thomas Bellotti, and then calmly walked away.

You ever go to Sparks Steakhouse or any steakhouse on 46th Street and see eight,

ten men with raincoats and fur hats and not think there's something a little bit

unusual about it? Well, I would.

It wasn't Moscow.

What the f*** is it?

The audacious nature of killing the boss of the family on a street in Manhattan

with all of these other thugs who were associated with him was just so sort of

outlandish. And I think it just inspired fear in the hearts of all the other

people who might seek to take over the leadership of the family.

Over the weekend, one police department source was quoted as saying John Gotti

walked into a party here on Christmas Eve clearly in charge. The quote was

he owned the place.

Gotti espoused all of these principles of honor. But what really brought him to

the position of power was the ultimate act of being dishonorable.

He killed the boss of the family.

Castellano's death, some feared, would trigger a violent power struggle within

the Gambino family.

But it appears Gotti has consolidated his hold.

Within weeks of the Castellano hit, John Gotti walked outside and

people...

applauded and cheered he had emerged not only the new boss of all bosses but the

gambino family really became the singular power within the mafia in new

for that matter in the whole united states

one

thing my father never did is

discuss the politics of the streets in his home.

It had no place there.

Don't get me wrong, there were reflections of it, because when your

you, you don't ever call a cop, you don't talk to no cop, you know, that's,

streets is coming into the home.

What he did in the streets, what his business was, that was never discussed.

What you learn is what you learn by observing.

Brooklyn police fear a new outbreak of mob warfare after a bomb exploded

an Italian restaurant today. One man was killed, 58 -year -old Frank DiCicco.

Police have no suspects.

After he took the family over, I think the immediate thought... was that Gotti

had placed himself at risk. Within a week or two, Frank DiCicco, who was

to be the underboss for Gotti, was blown up, and some thought that it was an

attempt to kill Gotti, but somehow they got their signals crossed and they ended

up killing DiCicco instead.

John Gotti was supposed to be in that car in a fight.

Remember right, he was in the club, and he didn't leave with Frankie DiCicco.

It now made us understand that there was going to be retribution for the

Castellano hit.

When Frankie DiCicco was killed, people saying that that was supposed to be my

father that day in the car is complete nonsense.

Our understanding, the reason why Anthony Gas Pipe Casso had targeted

DiCicco was Gas Pipe Casso and Frankie DiCicco had a longstanding relationship.

And Frankie DiCicco may have shared details of the conspiracy against Paul.

And this was Anthony Gaspipe Casso, who was a deranged lunatic. This is his way

of basically cleaning the slate.

I saw what happened to Frankie Tachico, so I did worry.

I got to get pumped.

I would stand by the door and watch him

walk to the car and start his car up and drive away.

I was afraid.

I believe it was 1986, Andy Warhol had painted a portrait of my father, and it

wound up on the cover of Time magazine.

I'll tell you, as an even 11-, 12 -year -old kid, I was worried for that. I just

said to myself, I said, no good can come from this.

He fit the media creation of a modern mafia Don.

Impeccably dressed, impeccably groomed, he was the dapper Don.

He was like a movie star.

When he walked into a club, I literally seen women that were married put their

telephone number in his pocket or go, like, schmooze up to him or want to,

hang out with him just because he was Don Gotti.

I mean, this guy was a celebrity at a level that seemed to be a kind of

violation of the philosophy of Omerta and the idea that we are a secretive

criminal organization.

John Gotti came up through the mob by way of murder.

To become a made member, he killed a man for the boss.

To become the boss, he killed the boss for himself.

It would be the press that would be running.

to catch up with John Gotti. But he did respond to the media's attention, and

the more he responded, the more attention he got.

You know, as I'm getting older, I'm hitting my 20s, and I have a better

understanding of things.

People take notice of you, and they want you to become more involved, to come

around more often and hang out and share certain bonds that they have.

Junior Gotti grew up in an environment where your father is a famous guy.

He's a very powerful guy.

And Junior enjoyed it as a young guy.

He enjoyed having all the influence and the cars and people gravitating to you

and having a crew of your own. And it's kind of being handed to him because of

who he's done it.

So I think he wasn't lured into it, but I think it was around him and it was

easy and there's a lot to enjoy the fruits of it.

My uncle had approached me.

He says, you know, let's take a walk.

He says, well, basically, he says, John, you know, we want you to spend more

time with us. We want you to be more like us.

That's what we want you to do.

And at first he says, what do you think about that?

And I said, uh.

Let me think about it. I was nervous.

And he says, well, you think about it. He was offended.

The answer you're going to give me?

Well, don't think too long.

He wears $1 ,800 suits, he's chauffeured around in a Mercedes, and when somebody

asked his wife what he does for a living, she said he provides.

The feds charged what he is is head of the Gambino crime family, and what he's

been doing for years are things like hijacking armored cars and murdering

mobsters. All this mafia talk, however, has defense attorneys livid. I'm

concerned that perhaps Mr. Gotti may not be able to get a fair trial.

I always felt he was a fearsome figure, that behind the handsome face and the

seemingly charming and warm personality was the power and ruthlessness that

is typical of what's behind organized crime in general.

They call it a secret society.

They call it men of honor. It's not. They're just ruthless psychopaths who

each other for gain.

The first time John Gotti was tried on racketeering or RICO charges, the case

was tried by the U .S. Attorney's Office, and that case was essentially a

catastrophe in the battle against organized crime. I went to Washington

fought against its being brought.

I failed. The U .S. Attorney backed his assistant, who did not have experience

in organized crime cases, and that case resulted in a very embarrassing

acquittal.

In Brooklyn, New York this afternoon, John Gotti, reputed to be one of the

nation's leading organized crime figures, was acquitted on racketeering

and so were six of his associates.

It was a stunning setback for the government.

It was a remarkable accomplishment, and when my father had come home, we had

yellow ribbons on all the trees on the block, and the neighbors all had pulled

in as well.

And when he pulled up and seen all the yellow ribbons on the block, it just got

his attention. He had a smile just beaming from ear to ear.

What did you do when you heard? We ran outside, we clapped, we screamed. We

so happy for him.

You know him? Yes, we do. And you're happy for him? Very happy. What kind of

guy is he? Great person.

Nice job on the avenue.

Look what everybody did for him.

He's excellent with everyone.

Do you think it was unfair what they've done to him?

Yes. Yes, I do.

Given all the newspaper reports about Gotti and who he was, I just assumed

the jury would be biased in favor of the prosecutors, and I assumed that Gotti

would be convicted.

But it turns out the evidence was very poor. It was very, very weak. From the

beginning, this case against Gotti was considered thin, involving his days as a

mafia captain before he became godfather.

Some prosecutors didn't want the case. One did, Diane Giacalone, who grew up in

the same Italian -American neighborhood as Gotti and lost today.

We? presented the evidence as best we could.

We presented it, I think, well.

Diane was a very good lawyer, but the more experienced men in the organized

crime strike force didn't want her to bring the case because she exposed

Boy. Willie Boy Johnson was a close associate of Gotti's. He was not an

-American, but nonetheless, he was a powerful figure in the Gotti crew. He

been a longtime FBI informant.

Over the years, he gave information on the Ravenite Club, the Bergen Hunt and

Fish Club, gave information on the McBratney killing in Staten Island.

I mean, he was with John Gotti from boyhood.

He was somebody that at one time or another was always involved since I was

basically a small child.

He was always welcome to come by the house. I was always welcome to go by his

house. Father loved him with all his heart, and I thought that Willie Boy

him too.

One of the real interesting lessons of my life was very, very young.

And I'll never forget it. You know, I was an 8 -year -old kid.

Willie Boy had this little fishing boat.

Every now and then, you know, he would ask me if I would come out with him, you

know, on a Saturday and do a little fishing.

And we would go by the bridge and put the poles in.

But I'll never forget the story.

He just looks at me with this broken glance, you know, where he looks like

he wants to cry in the worst way.

And he says, you know, Pete, he goes, you know I love you, right?

And I said, yeah, Uncle Willie boy, yeah, you know, I know that.

He goes, you know, I would never, never hurt you and such, right?

I said, I think so, you know. But I really didn't understand what the hell

was talking about.

And, you know, again, for many years later, I wouldn't understand what he was

talking about. But all I know is he had these tears in his eyes.

After the trial, I said to Willie, Willie, you got to get in the wind.

He said, no, no, no, no. I talked to John. We've been friends for many years.

He said I did a bad thing, but as long as I didn't testify against him,

everything was all right.

You're ostracized from the family, but as far as your safety is concerned,

Willie, you're okay.

They got him coming out of the house in the morning.

19 shots.

19 shots.

The government really hated John Gotti because he kept getting

away from them.

Despite all the high -tech surveillance the feds had done on him, he was found

not guilty and promptly stood up in court and shouted at his prosecutors,

on you.

He intimidated people who wanted to testify against him. There's a very

front page in the New York Post where a guy was going to go to...

trial against John Gotti, and when he realized who he was going to testify

against, he suddenly told the government, oh, I don't want to testify,

front page of the newspaper said, I forgot he.

Ramuel Pisek, a refrigeration mechanic, accused Gotti and an associate of

beating and robbing him in a dispute over a double -parked car.

But when the case went to court, Pisek suddenly decided not to testify.

He reached a lot of people that way, including a lot of people who ultimately

sat on juries. Oh, yeah, that's John Gotti. I heard all about him. The Dapper

Don seems like an amazing, charismatic guy, and I'm not going to vote guilty

because he'll kill me.

So for a number of years, Gotti had this sort of aura of invincibility, and the

tabloids took to calling him the Teflon Don.

It was really a myth because the cases that had been pursued were cases that

should not have been pursued. They didn't have sufficient evidence for

conviction. John Gotti walks into court for his third trial in less than five

years. The smile on his face is a slap in the face to prosecutors.

The government does not like getting beaten and watching the guy who

continues to beat them on television. They were going to get him one way or

other.

You see on January 18th of 1986, a man consolidating his power.

If he gets what he wants, he's going to have a legacy, a hell of a legacy, a 30

-year legacy.

He was charged with the shooting of the union leader, John O 'Connor.

And that shooting and wounding of John O 'Connor, my father faced 25 to life.

Gotti is charged with ordering thugs to teach a union boss a little lesson.

Hired guns shot O 'Connor four times in the buttocks. It was not a complex case.

It involved an extortion at a restaurant, a bankers and brokers

lower Manhattan.

A labor union official, one of the heads of the Carpenter's Union, was beaten.

Ladies and gentlemen, to sum up, John Gotti is in fact the boss of the Gambino

-O 'Connor family. And when he's challenged, we've got to react.

February 8th, my father took me for a walk around the block because the court

clerk... told Bruce Cutler, says, 11 tuna fish, one roast beef.

So you're figuring it's 11 -1 against you. 11 tuna fish, 11 against you, one

roast beef, one for us.

So my father says, look, John, probably tomorrow I'm going to fall on this case.

I said, what do you mean?

He says, yeah, we got the word. He says, it's 11 -1 against us.

So if the person can't hold out, he says, I'm going to probably fall

this case, which means they're going to take me in immediately, and it means the

rest of my life.

I'm trying to absorb it all, but I'm a little numb because my father was

we'll bust their holes, we'll bust their holes, always. It's always his

attitude. He wasn't saying that. He was convinced there was 11 -1 against us.

It was the other way around.

We find him not guilty.

The next day when he's acquitted, I was over the moon, shocked, shocked,

elated.

And now he comes home, it's on the 9th, and we're waiting by the Bergen for him.

He said, the fireworks play.

We're all happy. We're all happy. We got a good decision.

The whole city should be happy.

There were very, very high -ranking, prominent gangsters in other families

were scratching their head at John Gotti. Like, why would you want your son

be part of all this life?

There's murder, there's violence, there's law enforcement.

You know, the endgame is a very dangerous one in that world. And a lot

shielded their children.

But John Gotti, again, was unique in the opposite. He brought his son along.

I was brought to a location.

It was an apartment on Mulberry Street.

And you don't know what to expect.

You're nervous. You're waiting. You're hanging around.

And then at some point, a knock on the door, and you're... On the other

side of the door, I was in a room full of individuals, people that I've grown

love and respect, and I was asked questions, and asked questions about my

basically, how I felt about certain things, and where I hoped to go in my

and my answers were all more than satisfactory for people to embrace me

me just like themselves.

From that moment, I walked down the street, Mulberry Street, several blocks,

the Ravenite Social Club.

And when I walked in, everybody just, like, cleared the path.

And I had to go straight into the back room and see my father.

He had a table in the back room with about eight or nine, you know, elder

fellas, elder statesmen.

And then all of a sudden he saw me coming through.

And his eyes widened.

And we walked over and we embraced.

And he whispered in my ear he was proud of me.

And it meant a lot to me because I floated home.

I walked in the door, but I floated out.

Later on that night, when everybody went off to bed, we went in his den, and my

father would break out a couple of bottles of King Louis XIII.

He said, let's have one more drink, you and I.

And he toasted to me, and I says, no, Dad, always to you.

A lot about my father is what he didn't say.

You're beaming with pride, but yet you don't discuss certain things, and that's

that.

It was just by his body language, by his actions, you had to understand what he

was feeling and what he wanted.

You more or less say to yourself, now I get it.

Now I get it.

What he did say is you have to enjoy these moments because you never know

it's going to be your last.

The FBI was spending over $100 million to get my father at that time, and

everybody wanted that price.

Federal FBI agents arrested the boss of the Gambino crime family, John Gotti.

It's a suffocating case for John.

He knew it. I'm not my father, and this is the life I really want.

I just wanted to move on.

I wouldn't plead and go to jail.

unless my father understood and gave me that permission.