John Gotti Junior - Part Two - Gotti Family

John Jr. being led to court

A supremely confident John Angelo Gotti Jr.

He doesn't quite have the style of the Dapper Don

Mug shot of young street thug Jr.Gotti

Dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and black-rimmed reading glasses, Gotti Jr bore little resemblance to the vicious drug dealer, murderer and racketeer described by the government. His wife, sisters and brother joined numerous supporters in the courtroom, some of them walking out at the prosecutor's remarks, but most sitting stony-faced. Gotti's lawyer, Charles Carnesi, argued that his client was part of the Gambino network headed by his father, but went clean after pleading guilty in 1999 to racketeering and serving five years in prison.
"Everyone has free will. This isn't about the mob. This is about what you decide to do with your life," Carnesi said.

The attorney also tore into the credibility of mafia turncoats who provided the bulk of the government's evidence against Gotti during the two-month trial. He stressed that each of these men had committed horrific crimes, including multiple murders, kidnapping, drug dealing and extortion, and now stood to get reduced sentences in exchange for assisting the prosecution.

The star prosecution witness, a confessed killer and Gotti's former best friend, John Alite, said on the witness stand that he literally could not remember how many crimes he had committed. But Carnesi threw cold water on Alite's testimony that Gotti ordered him to commit murders, saying the killer saw his statements as a get out of jail card.
"All he has to do is add the tag line 'John told me...' Those few words wash away a multitude of sins," Carnesi said.
But Trezevant said Gotti was like an "actor" who was in fact an "unrepentant street thug" who joined the Gambino ranks in the 1980s, rose to street boss and made millions of dollars from drug sales and shakedowns.

It is the mafia trial to end all mafia trials, providing a rare glimpse into a mob world that still dominates America's cultural landscape, even while it fades as a criminal organisation. Gotti is probably the most famous alleged mafioso in America, son of John Gotti Sr., Gotti Jr stands accused of a series of brutal killings in a massive case assembled by the FBI in its fourth bid in five years to bring him down.

The star witness for the prosecution is John Alite, an Albanian mobster and self-confessed killer who was Gotti's friend. The pair grew up together and were said to be as close as brothers. In the tight-knit world of the mafia, bound by its secret oath of omertà (loosely translated as "code of silence"), that should have been enough to ensure Alite would never testify.Yet omertà is clearly not what it used to be. In a stunning betrayal of the mafia code, Alite has taken the stand in the trial and sung like a canary. For hours, Alite has recounted endless details of mafia hits and the partying lifestyle he and Gotti enjoyed in between murders. All the while Gotti has stared at him balefully, backed up by a courtroom packed with his family and friends.

If that was intended to intimidate Alite, it has not worked. "John Gotti Jr was my boss" were the first words to come out of Alite's mouth as he opened his testimony. He went on to detail how Gotti had collaborated with him on three killings and had told him about four others. The descriptions are blood-curdling, including how he had put one man's body in a car crusher at a junkyard and another victim had been hanged from a tree.After killing drug dealer George Grosso in 1988, Alite and Gotti had their nails done and then returned to the scene of the crime to check if Grosso was indeed dead, Alite testified. "He doesn't look that good," Alite said Gotti had joked after seeing Grosso's corpse.

That callousness in Gotti had also been witnessed by Kevin Bonner, who testified that he had seen him fatally stab a man in a bar brawl in 1983. Daniel Silva was just a local drinker at the Silver Fox bar in New York who had got into a row with Gotti. Gotti stabbed Silva and left him slumped and bleeding on a bar stool, Bonner testified. A second witness added that Gotti had taunted the dying man with a Porky Pig impression, saying: "Th-th-that's all, folks!"

The brutality detailed in the case so far has generated huge media interest, but some say that reflects the fact that the American public, inspired by films and TV shows such as The Godfather and The Sopranos, is obsessed with all things mafia. In fact, Italian-American gangs are far less of a problem than Mexican, Russian, Albanian, Chinese or Colombian criminal organisations. "With the Godfather movies we greatly overstated their criminal power in the first place.

It may have been unfortunate, but it did not appear to stop Gotti, Alite or others living like the mobsters they saw on screen. Alite has described a celebrity-style existence of fast cars, fancy restaurants and glamorous women that seems straight out of the classic mob film Goodfellas. He told of wearing $500 shoes and Rolex watches, and watching Gotti blow $30,000 at the gambling tables during a trip to Las Vegas.

Like every good soap opera, the case has had its family drama. Alite claimed while under oath that he and Gotti's sister, Victoria, had become romantically close after she had been beaten by her then husband, Carmine Agnello.
"I had feelings for her, she had feelings for me. We talked to each other," Alite claimed. That prompted Victoria to break her own silence. "The only feelings I had for John Alite were that I despised him," she told reporters, denying any relationship. The comments were immediate headline news in New York's mafia-hungry tabloids.

But while Victoria's feelings for Alite and his breaking of the mafia's once-sacred code were clear, she is also guilty of her own version of telling tales. Perhaps no one typifies the bizarre mix of crime, pop culture and the media that the mafia in America has become than Victoria Gotti. Not only has she been the star of her own reality TV show, Growing Up Gotti, she also chose last week to publish her memoir, This Family of Mine. In it she describes the ceremony in which her brother, John Jr, became a "made man" in the mob.
"This was one of the happiest days in his life," she wrote. Victoria even described the secret oath-taking ceremony that involved burning a picture of a saint stained with blood and she also listed those present. It seems that when it comes to breaking omertà, Gotti's problems have not ended with his ex-best friend on the witness stand.