Sunday, January 18, 2015

John Gotti Jr. writes tell-all mob book...

The son of late John (Dapper Don) Gotti bares all — from his childhood to his initiation into the Gambino crime family to his plea deal — in his tell-all memoir, 'Shadow of My Father.'

special to the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sunday, January 18, 2015, 12:01 AM
 

John A. (Junior) Gotti is seen in 2009 outside his Oyster Bay home. stephen Barcelo for new york daily news John A. (Junior) Gotti is seen in 2009 outside his Oyster Bay home.
The feds tried to throw the book at him. Now, John A. (Junior) Gotti is releasing his own.
The son of late John (Dapper Don) Gotti bares all in his tell-all memoir, “Shadow of My Father.”
From his father’s love of the life to what it was like growing up Gotti, Junior’s tome provides a rare, stunning window into America’s most notorious mob family.
I was about seven at the time I visited my father in Lewisburg Penitentiary. He was there on a hijacking bid; and my mother, my brother Frank, and my two sisters were there to see him. I didn’t understand the concept of jail, so seven-year-old me believed my father when he told me that the place was a barracks and he and his friends there with him were constructing it. He would be home when the construction was finished.
With him in jail were his lifelong friend Angelo Ruggiero, as well as Frank DeCicco, Mickey Boy Paradiso, and George Remini. When I went there to visit, it was like a family reunion. As kids, we were allowed to visit from table to table in the visiting area, which you can picture as being similar to a school lunchroom type setup.
It was around Halloween and my father asked me during the visit, what I was going to be — for Halloween.
READ MORE: John (Junior) Gotti on why he authored tell-all book — EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
“Officer Mike, down the block is going to let me use his nightstick and policeman’s hat. I’m going as a cop, dad.”
I saw his entire expression change — wide eyed, he bit his fist, which I came to learn was a gesture indicating, shall we say, extreme displeasure. He looked at my mother, who already knew what the gesture meant.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” he asked my mother. “What have you done to my kid? He wants to become a cop?”
'Shadow of My Father,' copyright John Angelo Gotti, available Monday on Amazon Kindle. Provided by John Angelo Gotti 'Shadow of My Father,' copyright John Angelo Gotti, available Monday on Amazon Kindle.
“Johnny,” my mother said, “he’s just a kid.”
“If I ever hear you let my son or any of my kids, or you for that matter, talk to that cop, or any other cop, I’ll kill you.”
My mother tried to placate him. “Relax, he’s just being nice to your son.”
“Butch,” he said looking at my mother, “don’t make me repeat myself, I have my standards, and that’s that.” (“Butch” was the nickname my father had given my mother after they saw the movie, ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.’)
Then it was my turn. He gave me the cold angry stare. “You don’t dress like a cop, you don’t act like a cop, you don’t talk like a cop — understand?” He gripped my forearms so tightly and I was so scared, I wet my pants.
THE DENTIST
In the 1970s, John Gotti Sr. was granted a furlough for a dental appointment after meeting inmates at Green Haven who were able to set up “dentist” appointments out of jail:
He would be escorted by marshals from the prison to the building in New York City where his dentist was located. Someone would be waiting for his arrival, and then give my father several hundred dollars to give to the guards, while my father enjoyed his furlough. My father would go up to the dentist’s office, open his mouth, and then go out the back of the building where one of the fellows would drive him away.
When it was time to return to the prison, my father’s man would drive him back to the dentist’s building, and he would emerge from the front entrance back into the custody of the marshals.
Junior (second from left) and his brother Frankie (third from left) pal around with John and Anna Maria Ruggiero in 1971. Junior (second from left) and his brother Frankie (third from left) pal around with John and Anna Maria Ruggiero in 1971.
I remember once my mother had put out a big spread of food for my father, who was coming home. At the time, I misunderstood, and thought he had been released from prison, but I didn’t know he was only free for a day.
So in comes my father. He spent some quality time with my mother, spent some time with us kids in the back yard. He comes in with a green jumpsuit from prison and changed his clothes.
At the conclusion of the family visit, he took a shower, put his prison clothes in a bag, and, prior to returning to Green Haven, managed to kill an individual who was a last piece of business left over...
ON HIS FAMILY
My father’s “work schedule” caused a lot of friction between my father and mother. They fought a lot. He would come home at 4 in the morning, and sometimes not until the next day. Clubbing, gambling, doing what men in his position do … In the end my mother accepted it. Didn’t like it, but accepted it.
My father and I didn’t have all of that usual “throw the ball around” time. Quite frankly, he preferred street life to home life. They’d go to the candy store, the racetrack and one of the social clubs.
After Junior got in a fight at school, he writes that his father told him: “Good. Anybody bad-mouths your family, or picks his hands up to you, you leave him there. If they’re too big for you, pick up a bat or a stick and hit them in the head with it.” (Words to live by, I thought at the time.)
He writes that he paid the mailman two bucks a shot to not deliver the school mail home, and a teacher said he’d pass him if he didn’t go to class. He was kicked out anyway and sent to New York Military Academy — Donald Trump’s school — at age 14.
He first learned who his father was when watching a football game there, when surveillance video came on and the reporter referred to his dad as “a rising star in the Gambino Crime Family.”
Former Mafia boss John Gotti  is shown arriving at New York State Supreme Court in this photo from Feb. 9, 1990. STR/REUTERS Former Mafia boss John Gotti  is shown arriving at New York State Supreme Court in this photo from Feb. 9, 1990.
ON DEATH OF BROTHER, FRANKIE
Charlie Dicanio came to get Junior and took him home. There were cars surrounding his house. Junior writes:
We kissed each other in greeting, then my father said, “C’mon you gotta walk with me. I gotta tell you some bad news. Your brother is dead.”
Frankie was 12. His mother broke a mirror in her rage. Gotti Sr., Junior writes, was inconsolable:
Angelo Ruggiero said, “Who knows why God does these things?”
“Don’t ever say that again, there ain’t no God, my son doesn’t even have hair on his p---- yet, and he’s lying dead here.”
I heard him crying alone in his den.
ON NEIGHBOR JOHN FAVARA
Was he a victim of my father’s vengeance? What I don’t know for sure, is if my father was involved. After all I was only 16 … what I do know for sure, is it was something my father could have done — you hurt one of his, he’s going to hurt you.
ON CHIN GIGANTE
The influence of my father over so many families made some in the Life uncomfortable.
Vincent (Chin) Gigante was a man who was used to being in control. With a whispered voice and a point to his chin to signal that orders came from him, Gigante ruled over the Genovese family. Members, when referring to him, would point to their chins, so that all would know who was the voice behind the orders being given.
My father was up front and out there with his people. He was accessible, out in the field every day, while Gigante, enshrouded in his bathrobe, played the part of the crazy man. Men in the Life could see and touch my father; he was a real leader, and not hiding behind any facade.
“I would rather be doing life,” my father would say, “Than be like him.”
ON JOHN ALITE
The man who is now “an authority” on the Gottis and is cashing in on a book was just a hanger-on who cut a deal with the feds and is living the good life, Gotti writes.
Alite was an Albanian. He was a non-Italian associate, basically the bottom of the totem pole, and he could never be made. Alite was not a denizen of the Bergin … After seeing all of the surveillance tapes taken of the Bergin, you would see Alite once or twice going around the corner of the club — and we’re talking from ’84-’91.
ON HIS WEDDING
Mafia boss John Gotti (left) never backed down, according to his son, who is seen with his notorious dad, his mom Victoria and brother Frankie (in his dad’s arms) in a photo from 1970. Mafia boss John Gotti (left) never backed down, according to his son, who is seen with his notorious dad, his mom Victoria and brother Frankie (in his dad’s arms) in a photo from 1970.
The reception in 1990 at the Helmsley Palace cost $1,000 a plate in 1990s money. Gotti writes that $350,000 of the wedding gift money was in a safe that was forfeited to the feds.
One thing you had to say about Leona Helmsley, she had guts. She was tough, and stuck by her guns. For my reception she flew a twenty-foot square Italian flag from the hotel, something normally reserved for diplomats … she took some flack for that. She didn’t care. She flew the flag and kept the cops out.
ON GETTING MADE
No. You don’t have to kill somebody. You do have to have a history of loyalty, of doing whatever it takes for the family. But killing someone as the price of admission — no ...
When first approached by an uncle to become “made” my response, which today seems incredible to me, was, “Okay, let us know.” (The chutzpah of the young knows no bounds, apparently.)
Normally we would spend part of the evening at the Ravenite Social Club in Manhattan, and I would be dressed up for the holidays. We would pay respect to Neil Dellacroce, say hello to the rest of the “fellas” and then make our way back to the Bergin Club in Ozone Park. The guys love the holidays, over 100 people at the Bergin, same with the Ravenite.
But for this particular Christmas Eve, when I was hanging out at the BSC the night before, my Uncle Gene advised me to “Make sure tomorrow, you are wearing a red tie and pocket square for good luck.” I knew then that the next day was the day of my initiation.
So on Christmas Eve, I wore a good black suit, white shirt and the red tie and pocket square.
At an apartment on Mulberry Street, owned by Joe (Butch) Corrao. There were to be five of us initiated that night. One of them was Michael (Mickey Scars) Dileonardo, who was to later testify for the government as to the ceremony.
Junior holds an umbrella over his father in a photo from 1989.
Junior holds an umbrella over his father in a photo from 1989.
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  • A photo featured in the book Shadow of My Father by John Gotti, Jr. Pictured L-R: John Gotti, Jr. and John Gotti. Surveillance photo, 1989. -- Photo courtesy of John Gotti, Jr.
  • In photo from self-published book, Junior (above) holds umbrella for his father in 1989. Teflon Don’s son (right, in 2009 photo) took plea deal 16 years ago after dad visited him in prison.
  • (Photo at top r., from l.) Peter Gotti, John Gotti Jr. and John Gotti (Front row, from l.) Angel Gotti, Kimberly Albanese (Gotti) and Victoria Gotti at the wedding of John Gotti Jr. in 1990.  At right, John Gotti Jr. with his son and daughter at Ray Brook prison. Inset, John Gotti Jr. mugshot.
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THE ACTUAL CEREMONY
There were roughly a dozen men sitting around a table…open seats for the new inductees. Around the table sat various capos in the Gambino family. My father was not there. There would be no show of nepotism here, and there could be deniability if needed later — my father was not to be the one who had straightened me out?
In the front of the room, he stood, and was asked, “Do you know everybody here?”
I said yes.
“How do you feel about them?”
I replied I liked them.
“Do you know who we are?”
“I have an idea,” I said. They confirmed my idea.
“We are a society and we live by our rules. We are a brotherhood. We honor and give loyalty to each other. We wonder if you want to be part of us?”
Junior is pictured in 2002 in a photo from his book. Junior is pictured in 2002 in a photo from his book.
I replied yes.
“You didn’t choose us, we chose you,” they told me. “We have watched you all these years, and we chose you…”
A pin pricked my “trigger” finger. A drop of blood was put on a picture of a saint, which was then burned in my hand. I moved the flaming picture from hand to hand, until it was totally consumed by the fire.
ON TAKING A PLEA
“Look at me,” joked my father. “Like I was Hannibal Lecter or something,” referring to the excess of guards and restraints. The voice was raspy from the disease and the treatments.
I tried not to stare.
“The f---ing trifecta,” he continued. “Jaw, throat and neck cancer. But despite the cut and paste job they’ve done on my face, I’m still me. Still standing. Still motherf---ering them at every turn.”
I smiled. Until he showed me the huge scar on his chest where flesh had been removed to graft on to his face.
“I got tits on my face now. Have to do one armed pushups now, ’cause they took the whole muscle.”
John A. (Junior) Gotti's mug shot. John A. (Junior) Gotti's mug shot.
It was getting tougher to keep smiling.
“F---ing government butchers.” I couldn’t help saying.
“Bullshit,” he said. “Cancer has maybe made my body betray me, but not my mind.” He pounded his chest like a gorilla. “Not my heart either. Never happen.”
He had stared directly into the prison video camera when he said that last part. He turned back to me. “What’s up?”
I looked at the camera, then looked down at the conference table. Couldn’t find any additional courage in these places. So I returned my gaze to my father’s eyes. Eyes that knew me as only a father and a boss in the Life could know me. I was expecting the lion to roar — when I said what I had to say. ...
I had to decide between my blood family and the one I was sworn into. I began pulling back in ’95, ’96 ’97, and then I was arrested in 1998.
My father remained ever steadfast due to his belief in the Life, fueled by his hatred for the government. I was wavering due to my love for my family.
“I’m thinking of taking a plea, making a deal.” Sometimes silences can be deafening.
“If I robbed a church and the steeple was sticking out of my ass, I would deny it. First of all John, what are their expectations of you in this plea?”
Junior is seen with his son and daughter at Ray Brook Prison in 2000. Junior is seen with his son and daughter at Ray Brook Prison in 2000.
“Five and a half to seven years,” I said.
My father looked at me sideways, “five and a half to seven? Which the f--- is it?”
I shrugged.
“I go buy a house. I asked the guy selling how much. Does he tell me somewhere between five hundred and fifty and seven hundred thousand?” My father shook his head. “What number you think he’s going to want?”
“They want their pound of flesh, that’s all they want,” I said, then realized that this expression had a literal meaning in this conference room for my father.
My father contained himself, but I could see the anger inside of him.
“I don’t want you should do one motherf---ing day in jail. I’d rather have this cancer than you have a cold.”
I began to reply but he cut me off with a wave of his hand. ...
“A f---ing plea?”
“My sons are kids. I do this deal I’m back with them with they’re teenagers. I lose at trial, I’m doing 20 years. Like they never had a father. Remember Neil’s kid Buddy? How he got f---ed up? I can still be there for my kids.”
“Sometimes you got to do things that f---ing hurt. Part of living like a man, not some guy who is looking for closure. My freedom and my life take a back seat to my duty and manhood. These are my standards John … Remember when you told me that you’d follow me off a cliff?”
“Sure dad.”
He leaned back and said nothing else

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