Born: October 27, 1940, Bronx, New York
Died: June 10, 2002, Springfield, Missouri
Nicknames: The Dapper Don, the Teflon Don
Associations: the Gambino Family, the Five
Families, the Commission, Paul Castellano, Sammy
“The Bull” Gravano John Gotti took control of the
most powerful of New York’s Five Families by the
old-fashioned Mob method of assassinating his
predecessor. It was a huge prize. The Gambino crime
family was one of the original Five Families of New
York and for decades was the most powerful and
profitable.
The Gambino family had for decades been one of the
most public and most violent of Mafia families.
Gotti ordered the murder of the previous boss, Paul
Castellano, in 1985. Castellano had been appointed
acting boss of the family by the aging Carlo Gambino
in 1975. Gambino had moved into the family top spot
in 1957 after arranging the murder of his
predecessor, Albert Anastasia. Anastasia, in turn,
had been elevated to boss after his predecessor,
Vincent Mangano, disappeared and was presumed
murdered in 1951.
Gotti’s elevation to boss came after members of his
crew were indicted for selling narcotics. He
reportedly was afraid that Castellano would kill him
for violating the family’s rule against drug
dealing. However, Castellano’s murder was not
sanctioned by the other crime families and this was
the basis for continuing resentment and hostility
with the other families. Gotti also engendered
resentment from other mobsters for being
conspicuously flashy — for example, by posing for
newspaper photos.
For years, that public presence didn’t seem to hurt
him. Through methods that prosecutors would later
prove included jury tampering and witness
intimidation, Gotti was able to beat federal charges
and trials in the 1980s for assault and
racketeering, earning him the “Teflon Don” label
from the media. The title wasn’t really indicative
of Gotti’s legal history – he had served three years
in a federal prison for theft and truck hijackings
in 1968, and had been in and out of state prison
since he was a teenager.
And he wouldn’t be Teflon for long. Local law
enforcement and the FBI were winning cases against
many of Gotti’s high-level associates while
continuing to build their case against Gotti. In
1990, federal agents raided the Ravenite Social
Club, a New York hangout where Gotti regularly did
business (and which the FBI had successfully bugged
for years). Among those arrested with Gotti was his
lieutenant, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano.
Gotti was charged with racketeering and five
murders, including the murder of Castellano,
conspiracy to murder, illegal gambling, loan
sharking, bribery, obstruction of justice and tax
evasion. The evidence against Gotti was substantial
and included incriminating wiretaps of the Ravenite
Social Club. Those taps led to the court refusing
bail for Gotti, and it also meant the
disqualification of two of Gotti’s favorite lawyers
on the grounds, the government argued, that they
essentially were part of the criminal organization.
Worse yet, Gotti was heard on the tapes criticizing
Gravano, who was disillusioned by his experience
working for his boss. Gravano switched sides, and in
the federal trial testified that Gotti led the
Gambino family and ordered the murders. This time,
Gotti was unable to get to witnesses or the jury,
and he was convicted in 1992 and sentenced to life
in prison. The Teflon Don, the FBI said, had become
the Velcro Don.
In 1998, Gotti was diagnosed with cancer. It was
treated, but returned, and in 2002 he died in a
federal prison hospital. His son, John Gotti III,
took control of the unraveling Gambino family after
his father’s imprisonment. John Gotti III was
arrested and charged with racketeering in 1998,
convicted and sentenced to six years in prison. He
was again arrested and charged with murder and
racketeering in Florida in 2008, but the case ended
in a mistrial.
John Gotti Jr.’s brother Peter Gotti took over as
Gambino boss in 2002, but he was in power for only a
year before being arrested and convicted of
racketeering.