Nicknamed the Dapper Don for his expensive suits, blow-dried hair, and monogrammed socks, John Gotti (1940–2002) was one of the most famous mafiosos of recent decades. As the head of New York’s Gambino family, he presided over a vast criminal empire that included loan-sharking, car theft, and heroin smuggling. His conviction in 1992 and subsequent life imprisonment, represented a major victory for the government in its war on organized crime.
Gotti was, in many respects, an atypical mobster. Unlike publicity-shy gangsters of the past, he relished the spotlight. Gotti also condoned drug smuggling, which had been frowned upon by some of his predecessors. The one mob tradition he did understand, however, was violence: Gotti was convicted of thirteen gangland murders, and he may have ordered dozens more. He is also thought to have arranged the disappearance of one of his neighbors, who had accidentally struck and killed Gotti’s twelve-year-old son, Frank, in 1980.
Gotti was born in the Bronx and later moved to Brooklyn, where he joined a local street gang. He became an associate in the Gambino family, one of New York’s five mafia groups, in the early 1960s. He became a capo at some point in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Gotti organized the killing of the Gambino boss, Paul Castellano (1915–1985), outside a steakhouse in Manhattan and took over the gang in 1985.
As boss, Gotti controlled a total of 300 “made” members. The gang generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, a portion of which went to Gotti. (For tax purposes, however, he claimed to be a plumbing supply salesman from Queens.)
Gotti beat two federal indictments, earning him the nickname the Teflon Don. He was finally brought down by a turncoat, Sammy “the Bull” Gravano (1945–), who agreed to testify against him in exchange for a reduced sentence for his own role in the murders. Gotti was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in jail at age sixty-one. His son, John A. Gotti (1964–), succeeded him as Gambino boss until he too went to prison in 1999.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- Gotti was an enthusiastic gambler who once reportedly lost $60,000 in a single dice game.
- Gravano, whose testimony against Gotti helped put his former boss behind bars, was placed in the federal witness protection program and relocated to Arizona. He returned to a life of crime, however, and was imprisoned in 2002 for running an Ecstasy ring in Phoenix.
- Gotti’s defense lawyer in the early 1970s was Roy M. Cohn (1927–1986)—who was already nationally famous for his work as chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908–1957) in the 1950s.
