John A. Gotti

• 1. Introduction

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  John Angelo Gotti, called Junior, sat through four racketeering trials between 2004 and 2009, and not one of them ended in a conviction. Yet he had already been to prison. In 1999 he was jailed for racketeering, after running the Gambino crime family as acting boss from 1992.

  How does one man end up both convicted and repeatedly unconvicted? What did the son of a famous Mafia boss inherit, and what did the inheritance cost him? And why could a government armed with an insider's testimony still fail to persuade twelve jurors?

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• 2. Howard Beach Boyhood

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  Howard Beach, New York, is where the Gotti children grew up, in a two-story house. John Angelo Gotti was born in Queens on the 14th of February 1964, to the mobster John Gotti and Victoria DiGiorgio Gotti. He had four siblings: sisters Victoria and Angel, and brothers Frank and Peter.

  His middle name came from Angelo Ruggiero, his godfather. Gotti and his siblings thought of Ruggiero as an uncle. As a young man, Gotti attended the New York Military Academy.

  After school, his father helped him start a trucking firm called Samson Trucking Company. When the business failed, his father arranged a position for him in the Carpenters Union. In both cases the opening came through his father, and the family's own business was waiting just beyond them.

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• 3. Youngest Captain

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  On Christmas Eve 1988, according to federal prosecutors, Gotti was formally inducted into the Gambino crime family. Michael DiLeonardo, a fellow mobster initiated the same night, later said that Gravano presided over the ceremony. By DiLeonardo's account, the reason was to head off any accusation of nepotism.

  In 1990 Gotti was named a caporegime, or captain. He is believed to be the youngest captain in the family's history.

  April 1992 brought the blow that reshaped his position. His father, John J. Gotti, received a life sentence for racketeering and related offenses. The elder Gotti insisted on keeping the title of boss until he died or retired. Orders went out in his name, relayed by his brother Peter and by Gotti Jr.

  The Gambino family now had a boss who could not leave prison and a stand-in who had held the rank of captain only since 1990.

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• 4. Dumbfella

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  The FBI bugs that brought down his father were fresh in Gotti's memory when he took charge. To avoid them, he held much of his business in "walk-talks," conversations conducted while strolling beside trusted captains. He also tried to pass himself off as a legitimate businessman.

  Respect inside the organization was thin. Several of his button men considered him incompetent. He negotiated far worse than his father had, and the Gambinos lost several disputes with the other families. The Genovese family thought so little of him that it refused to deal with him at all.

  In 1995, Charles Carneglia and John Alite were involved in a major conspiracy to murder Gotti.

  Then came 1997, when the FBI searched the basement of a property he owned. Agents found $348,700 in cash and two handguns. They also found a typed list of the names of the made members of his organization. Another list recorded the guests at his wedding, along with the value of their gifts, which totaled more than $350,000.

  A further list named men who had been inducted into other families in 1991 and 1992. A longstanding rule in the New York Mafia requires prospective members to be vetted by the other families before induction. Such lists are normally destroyed almost as soon as the inductions happen.

  The discovery enraged Gotti's father and the other bosses, because it exposed dozens of other mafiosi to government scrutiny. The New York media gave him a nickname for it: "Dumbfella." The same seized lists would soon become part of the case against him.

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• 5. Scores and the Plea

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  A strip club called Scores, an upscale venue in Manhattan, sat at the center of the racketeering case that reached Gotti in 1998. He was indicted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, and was believed to be running the family. Many of the charges concerned attempts to extort money from the club's owners and employees.

  According to the indictment, the Gambinos forced the owners of Scores to pay $1 million over six years to stay in business. Gotti's share came to $100,000. Prosecutors also held transcripts of prison conversations in which his father advised him on how to run the family.

  On the 5th of April 1999, facing overwhelming evidence, Gotti Jr. pleaded guilty to four acts of racketeering, including bribery, extortion and the threat of violence. He did so against his father's advice. His lawyer said he accepted the plea bargain because he feared repeated prosecutions in multiple jurisdictions otherwise.

  On the 4th of September 1999 he was sentenced to six years and five months in prison and fined $1 million.

  The indictment strained his parents' marriage. His mother, until then unaware of her son's involvement in the Mafia, blamed her husband for ruining her son's life. She threatened to leave him unless he let Gotti Jr. leave the mob.

  Federal prosecutors said his uncle Peter Gotti became head of the Gambino organization once Gotti Jr. went to prison. Peter is believed to have formally succeeded his brother shortly before the death of Gotti Sr. in June 2002.

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• 6. The Sliwa Case

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  In 2004, only months before his release from prison, Gotti was charged in an 11-count racketeering indictment. It alleged a plot to kidnap Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels. It also covered securities fraud, extortion and loansharking.

  Sliwa hosted a radio talk show on WABC. He had allegedly angered the family by denouncing the elder Gotti on air as "Public Enemy #1."

  At trial, two former associates testified against Gotti: the same Michael DiLeonardo, and Joseph D'Angelo. Gotti's attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, made a striking concession on his behalf. Gotti admitted he had been involved in the Gambino family in the 1990s, and had even been slated to lead it after his father went to jail in 1992. But the defense claimed he had left criminal life behind after his conviction in 1999.

  Three juries eventually deadlocked on the charges, the last in 2006. Federal prosecutors decided not to pursue a fourth trial. The government was not finished with him, however, and its next case would rest on a witness from his own past.

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• 7. The Alite Trial

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  In August 2008, Gotti was arrested on racketeering and murder conspiracy charges brought in Florida. The case rested on an alleged drug trafficking ring that Gotti operated with a former associate, John Alite, who had turned government witness. It also involved three killings: George Grosso in 1988, Louis DiBono in 1990, and Bruce John Gotterup in 1991. Prosecutors said the ring distributed at least five kilograms of cocaine in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

  The trial was later moved to New York. Gotti pleaded not guilty, and testimony began in September 2009.

  Alite's own record was extensive. In January 2008 he had pleaded guilty to two murders, four murder conspiracies, at least eight shootings and two attempted shootings. He also admitted armed home invasions and armed robberies in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida, arising from a Gambino crew in Tampa. He agreed to testify at the trial of the Gambino enforcer Charles Carneglia, who was found guilty of four murders and is serving a life sentence. He then became the key prosecution witness against Gotti.

  In the courtroom, Gotti allegedly mouthed the words "I'll kill you" at Alite, and the two engaged in a shouting match. Victoria Gotti told the New York Daily News that Alite was "a pathological liar" and "a rat caught in a proverbial trap." Alite testified that Gotti was responsible for at least eight murders, among other crimes.

  On the 1st of December 2009, the 12 jurors announced that they could not reach a unanimous verdict on the charges, and the judge declared a mistrial. Jurors afterward said they did not find the prosecution's witnesses credible, particularly Alite. One said prosecutors should stop now and called the case ridiculous. Another said, "It's abusive. It's almost become a mockery." Gotti was released that same day.

  In January 2010, federal prosecutors announced they would no longer seek to prosecute him on those charges.

  Gotti maintains that he has since left the Gambino family. In a 2015 interview with the New York Daily News, he denied being an informant. He said he did give the FBI information, but that it was false, and that no indictments came from it.

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• 8. After the Courtroom

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  Gotti married Kimberly Albanese in 1990. They have six children and live in Oyster Bay Cove, on Long Island's North Shore. Their son, John Gotti III, works as a professional mixed martial artist and professional boxer. On the 11th of October 2025, Gotti III was knocked out in a pro boxing match by Dan Augare.

  In November 2013, Gotti himself was stabbed in Syosset, New York, while breaking up a fight. In 2015 he wrote a book titled Shadow of My Father.

  Film came next. In September 2010, Fiore Films announced that it had secured the rights from Gotti to make a movie about his life, especially his relationship with his father. According to Variety, several producers had shown interest, but Gotti chose Fiore, a small and newly created production company.

  The film was tentatively titled Gotti: in the Shadow of My Father, with Barry Levinson attached to direct. John Travolta was cast as Gotti's father, and his wife, Kelly Preston, as Victoria Gotti. Spencer Lofranco played Junior Gotti. The production eventually lost Levinson.

  On the 25th of July 2016, principal photography began on the renamed film, Gotti, with Kevin Connolly directing. It was released on the 15th of June 2018. The documentary television miniseries Gotti: Godfather and Son had arrived on the 9th of June 2018, days before.

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