December 16, 1985, Sparks Steak house, Manhattan New
York. John Gotti and Salvatore “The
Bull” Gravano were parked in a car one block.
It was a cold December day in New York City. Gambino family boss Paul Castellano was
getting driven to a meeting at the restaurant, the driver of the car was Thomas
Billoti a Capo in the family. Billoti
parks the car in front of the restaurant at approximately 5:30pm. Castellano was sitting in the rear seat of
the vehicle and he began to get out of the passenger side. A hit team approached the vehicle and started
shooting at the Boss, he was shot six times.
Billoti heard the shots and went to get out of the car and he was taken
out from behind. Bilotti was stunned and
shocked by the shots being fired at them, that he was not paying attention to
his surroundings. A gunman approaches
from behind and takes him out. At the
end, each man is shot six times and they both lay dead on the streets of Manhattan. The two men kept this assassination plot a
mystery from the other Gambino family members.
 |
| Thomas Bilotti's body on the ground |
Back at the car, Gravano puts the car in drive and proceeds
to go to the scene of the hit. Gravano pulls
the car next to Castellano’s vehicle to see the outcome of the hit. Gravano
looks down at the body of Bilotti that was laying lifeless on the street and
stated to Gotti “he was gone”. Gravano
and Gotti drive away and head to Gravano’s office in Brooklyn. This unsanctioned hit would propel John Gotti
to the top of the Gambino family, and cause his rapid descent from the rank of
boss.
Gotti: The Young Years
John Gotti was born on October 27, 1940 in the Bronx, New
York. John Gotti’s household consisted
of his mother, father and 12 other siblings.
Gotti dropped out of high school at the age of 16. He started hanging out in the mean streets of
Queens, and soon became involved with a street gang called the Fulton Rockaway
Boys, and in this gang, he meets Angelo Ruggiero who would become one of his
best friends for the rest of his life.
Gotti became involved with the Mangano/Gambino family under
Capo Carmine Fatico. During his time in
Fatico’s crew he would meet future underboss Aniello Dellacroce who would
become Gotti’ s mentor. At an early age
Gotti would run errands for Fatico.
During his tenure as a soldier in the family Gotti made his
money by hijacking trucks coming out of Idlewind Airport (now it called JFK
airport). Another notorious cargo jacker
was future Bonanno boss Joseph Massino, who Gotti would become good friends
with. In 1968 Gotti, and his good pal
Angelo Ruggiero were convicted for hijacking cargo and sentenced to prison for
3 years.
Gotti was paroled in 1972 and returned to Fatico’s crew that
was run out of the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Queens. Fatico took a liking to Gotti because he did
not talk to the feds and did his time in prison. Fatico
decided to give Gotti more responsibilities for his loyalty.
Gotti: His rise in La Cosa Nostra
In the late 50s Albert Anastasia was running the Mangano
family. On the orders from the
commission he was taken out and soon after the Underboss Carlo Gambino was
named boss. After Boss Carlo Gambino
took over the family it was renamed from Mangano to Gambino. Carmine Fatico’s crew was absorbed into the
family.
Carmine Fatico gave the job of enforcer to John Gotti, and
he was responsible for collecting debts from illegal gambling owed to the
crew. Soon after Fatico was indicted, he
was forbidden from interacting with the family.
Fatico chose John Gotti to run the crew.
At the time Gotti had not yet been inducted into the family because the
books had been closed by Carlo Gambino.
As the acting capo for Fatico’s crew Gotti often had to travel to
Manhattan’s Little Italy to meet with Underboss Aniello Dellacroce at his
social club, The Ravenite.
Gambino boss Carlo Gambino had a nephew that was kidnapped
and assassinated. Gambino wanted revenge
so the hit was assigned to Gotti. Gotti
received the hit because Dellacroce assigned it to him. Dellacroce knew that if Gotti had
successfully carried out the hit he would be inducted into the family once the
books were opened. The killer of
Gambino’s nephew was a hoodlum named James McBratney, who had no mafia affiliation.
May 22, 1973, Staten Island.
Gotti and his team, Angelo Ruggiero and Ralph Galione walked into a
Staten Island bar called Snoope’s. The
three were posing as cops and approached McBratney and asked him to come with
them. McBratney believed that the three
men were gangsters because of the way they talked and walked. McBratney knew better and he suspected that
they were going to kill him and he resisted.
A struggle occurs between the four men, at this point the rest of the
patrons in the bar are cheering on McBratney.
Galione got tired of the struggle pulled out his pistol and shot
McBratney dead.
Gotti laid low for a year after the hit, he was a wanted man
along with the other two because the hit occurred in front of many
witnesses. The Gambino hired famed
attorney Roy Cohn to represent Gotti and Ruggiero. John Gotti copped a plea to attempted
manslaughter and was sentenced to four-year’s in prison. It is believed that the hit on McBratney
earned him membership into the family.
The books were closed but membership was allowed for Gotti because he
did the boss Carlo Gambino a favor.
Gotti: His rise to the top of the Gambino Family
After completing two years in prison in July 1977 John Gotti was released. Gotti was promoted to the rank of Capo and he was given the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club crew to run, he still answered to Dellacroce. Carlo Gambino had passed away on October 15, 1976 and by this time Paul Castellano had become boss of the family. Castellano at the urging of the underboss Dellacroce promoted Gotti.
Paul Castellano carried on the time-honored tradition of
death to those members of the family who sold narcotics. From the mid-70s to the mid-80s Gotti’s crew
continued dealing in narcotics.
Gambino
family members were not happy with the Paul Castellano leadership. Castellano did not earn his bones through the
traditional mafia ways. Castellano
considered himself a businessman and he had in fact made millions of dollars
from legitimate businesses. In the late
70s Castellano demanded fifteen percent kickbacks from everyone in the family
instead of the traditional ten percent.
In the early 1980s Gotti’s crew had begun to get
investigated from the feds for dealing narcotics.
Angelo Ruggiero had been caught on wiretaps
speaking of drug deals. In 1983 Angelo
Ruggiero and Gene Gotti, John’s brother were arrested for dealing heroin. Boss Paul Castellano demanded the Angelo
Ruggiero tapes and he refused to turn them over. Castellano threatened Gotti with a demotion
if the tapes were not turned over.
Paul Castellano was arrested in 1985 and Gotti eyed a chance
to take over the family. Gotti along
with a few other conspirators plotted the hit that would take Castellano
out. On the eve of December 16, 1985,
the hit was carried out successfully.
Capo Frank DeCicco informed Gotti that a meeting was going to occur at
Sparks Steakhouse that day, Gotti seized the opportunity. On December
In January 15, 1986, John Gotti was named boss of the
Gambino family after having a family meeting with the other capos. Gotti named
Frank DeCicco underboss. Gotti
subsequently named his co-conspirator in on the Castellano hit Sammy Gravano as
Consigliere of the family. Many of the
other families were not happy with the hit, especially the Genovese and the Lucchese
families.
Gotti: How the Feds got to him
In the span of 9 years Gotti went from soldier, to capo, to
boss of the Gambino crime family. One of
the first orders that Gotti put out as boss, was that no members of the family
could take plea deals that acknowledge that Cosa Nostra existed.
On April 13, 1986, a bomb was placed in a car by a Gambino
mobster James Failla who the Genovese family wanted to put in place of boss of
the Gambino family. Lucchese underboss
Anthony Casso was nearby watching.
Failla detonated the bomb after confusing a Lucchese soldier for John
Gotti, Gambino underboss Frank DeCicco was killed in the explosion.
Soon after the Gambino family sent a hit team after Luchesse
underboss Anthony Casso. The hit team
failed and subsequently they were caught by Casso, and his NYPD crooked detectives. The hit team was
killed. It is believed that Casso had
Sammy Gravano and Angelo Ruggiero on his kill list. Eventually Gotti, the Genovese and Luchesse
Family settled their differences.
John Gotti went on to defeat the government three times in
the mid to late 80s. The press dubbed
him the Teflon don, because any indictment against Gotti would not stick. John Gotti loved the limelight and he often
wore three thousand-dollar suits, and for this the press dubbed him the Dapper
Don. Soon after John Gotti became the
boss of the family he moved his headquarters from the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club
in Queens to the Ravenite Social Club in Little Italy. Gotti wanted the Capo’s in the family to pay
homage to him on a weekly basis, so every week the Ravenite would be full of
wise guys.
The feds needed to change their strategy to nab the dapper
don. They went back to doing what they
do best which is to gather information by conducting surveillance. With associates, made men, and capos paying
homage to Gotti on a weekly basis a map of the structure of the family was
created.
In 1988 the agents assigned to conduct surveillance on Gotti
obtained a warrant to plant a bug in Gotti’s Ravenite Social Club in
Manhattan’s Little Italy. The only
problem was that it was very noisy in there and very difficult to catch any
conversations. After a few months the
electronic surveillance was shut down because they could not get any criminal
information from the bugs.
The team of agents continued the visual surveillance. They noticed when Gotti had to talk business
he would walk around the neighborhood.
The mobsters called them walk and talks because it was very difficult
for surveillance teams to plant bugs.
The agents also noticed that after a while Gotti could no longer be
heard on the tapes, if was as if he disappeared at certain times.
Gotti: The Bugs are Replanted
The team discovered that Gotti would leave the Ravenite and
go into an apartment two 2 floors above the Ravenite to talk serious business. The FBI observed that an old lady would leave
at the same time on a weekly basis and return a few hours later. When the old lady appeared Gotti could not be
heard on the tapes inside the Ravenite anymore.
The name of the lady was Netti Cirelli, the widow of an old Gambino
soldier. The team of agents met with an
informant who stated that the lady lived alone.
November 19, 1989 the surveillance team observed Cirelli
leaving the apartment with a suitcase.
They assumed she was going somewhere for the Thanksgiving holiday. The FBI seized the opportunity and entered
her apartment, it was small and there was only one place to sit. It had a lamp nearby, so the team of agents
planted a bug in the lamp. The team of
agents started picking up incriminating conversations that Gotti would
have. In one of those tapes he talks
about whacking his underboss Sammy “The Bull” Gravano and this would be
instrumental in helping to take Gotti down.
December 2, 1990, The Ravenite Social Club, Manhattan’s
Little Italy, a team of federal agents and NYPD detectives raid the Social Club
and arrest Boss Gotti, Underboss Gravano, and Loscacio the Consigliere of the
family. The Cirelli tapes where played
at a pretrial hearing where all the defendants were denied bail. Sammy Gravano heard what John Gotti had said
about him on the tapes, and he was infuriated.
Gravano decided to turn states evidence against Gotti because he
believed that Gotti was going to try to pin everything on him. On November 13, 1991 Gravano and the Justice
department finalized the agreement.
Gotti: The Trial
February 12, 1992 the trial against Gotti and Loscacio
began. The jury remained anonymous and
was sequestered for the entire trial, this time there would be no bribing any
jurors. The recordings made in Cirelli’s
apartment proved to be damning evidence against Gotti. To add insult to injury Gravano then
testified against his former boss. Gravano
identified Gotti as the boss and went on to confirm the information that was on
the tapes. The government presented a
case that ran until March 24, 1992.
Gotti’s defense team then began to work.
Unfortunately for Gotti the witnesses on his behalf were expelled and
his only witness was a tax attorney. On
April 2, 1992 after 14 hours of deliberation the jury convicted Gotti and his
consigliere Loscacio.
During John Gotti’s trial, wiretap tapes were played that had
Angelo Ruggiero telling a mob associate that boss Paul Castellano considered
John Gotti for a higher position then Capo.
The Gambino soldier said on those tapes said that Underboss Aniello
Dellacroce informed Boss Castellano that every family grooms someone to take over
the family in case something happens to the leadership. In the end Gotti’s mouth and his love 0of the
public life is what brought an end to his reign. On June 24, 1992, Gotti along with Loscacio
were sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Gotti: The Inevitable End
The Dapper Don John Gotti died in prison on June 10, 2002 in
a federal prison in Springfield Missouri.
The Catholic Diocese in Brooklyn, NY did not allow Gotti’s family to
have a mass for his soul before the funeral, instead they allowed for a
memorial mass after the burial. Gotti’s
funeral was held at Papavero Funeral Home in Maspeth, Queens, New York on June
15, 2002. The funeral procession proceeded
through the streets of Queens passing by Gotti’s home, Bergin Hunt and Fish
Club, and his final resting spot the cemetery.
Gotti was laid to rest in St. John's Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens,
next to his son Frank who was killed at 12 years old.
Gotti was given the nickname the “Dapper Don” by the media
because of the way he dressed, the money that was used to buy the fancy suits
was from ill-gotten gains. The media
dubbed him the “Teflon Don” because in the 1980s he beat the government in
court 3 times, but we now know that the juries were tainted. Once the feds got to him the nicknames given
to him no longer meant anything, he did have the support of his community but
in hindsight the public and his community had no idea how evil and devious he
was. At the end John Gotti’s tenure as
the Gambino Crime family boss, arrogance and his inability to foresee how the
federal government would get to him, is what brought an end to his reign.
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