Couple of Stories You Won't Find in a Certain Ebook

Does John Gotti Junior, in his 500-plus-page book, tell the one about the former NYPD detective who gave the Gambino crime family confidential information about a 1983 murder that condemned a witness to death?

Does he tell the one about the Gambino capo who allowed Gaspipe Casso to murder his own nephew, James Hydell, who'd been part of a team that had tried and failed to take out Gaspipe in a hail of bullets? You shoot a guy like Gaspipe and miss, you kill yourself because you're already a dead man.





The witness's death had been previously ruled a suicide, as improbable as that scenario even had to have appeared to the cops who first rolled up in a radiocar. The wiseguys should've picked a taller tree; the one they hung this guy from was too low.

I'm pretty sure Junior wouldn't go into these stories in those 500-plus pages. But he definitely told someone these stories, mixing fact and fiction to cover his ass. One has only to do some research and read how the reports evolve. Having a couple of sources always helps as well.

Bottom line is he certainly told the feds some stories.

It's amazing what can be found via a Google search and how old stories suddenly can become extremely relevant in certain contexts.

According to the October 2006 report, at a secret session with the feds John "Junior" Gotti "fingered [the] former NYPD detective as a money-hungry roque" responsible for the death by hanging of Vinny Cennamo. He was the guy who, as we previously noted, claimed he'd seen Junior stab someone to death in a barroom brawl.

Only in Junior's account some key names were changed.

A source very close to the situation and people also told as that Joe Watts, who did very bad things, was not involved in these events, despite what's said below....

Angelo "Quack Quack" Ruggiero, the pigeon-toed wiseguy who indeed spoke too much, told Junior this, according to what Junior secretly told the Feds at that meeting. Ruggiero had been a former close ally of Gotti Senior. He died of cancer in 1989 having been shunned and ignored, despite what you saw on HBO. Armande Assante never shared a cannoli with him as he lay dying.

According to a story on Gangland News: "Police reports state that Cennamo, a friend of the murder victim, fingered Mark Caputo, a burly 6-foot-2-inch, 300-pound "bodyguard" whom the elder John Gotti had assigned to watch over his son, as the killer and said he left the bar with Junior.

According to what Junior told the feds, Ruggiero said that he and two other cronies of the elder Gotti used crucial background information supplied by the detective to whack Cennamo and make it appear to be a suicide, the sources said.


At the time of the conversation, Junior told the feds, Ruggiero was on the outs with the Dapper Don, who was boss of the crime family by then and had placed Ruggiero "on the shelf," a designation that essentially stripped him of all his rights and responsibilities as a wiseguy.


In 1983, though, Ruggiero was a close cohort and fierce ally of the elder Gotti, and a man whom 19-year-old Junior often referred to as his "uncle." It was to Uncle Angelo's house that Junior went in the early hours of March 12, 1983, immediately after the fatal 2 a.m. stabbing of Danny Silva at the Silver Fox Bar in Ozone Park.


A day or two later, Junior told the feds, he drove Ruggiero to a meeting at the Sherwood Diner in Lawrence, L.I., where he saw Ruggiero give detective John Daly a $25,000 bribe as "insurance" that Junior, who had been at the bar but was not implicated in the slaying by any witnesses, would not become a focus of the murder probe, the sources said.


According to the sources, Junior said he watched from his car as Ruggiero gave Mr. Daly a brown paper bag that contained $25,000 during a brief meeting behind the diner. When the meeting broke up, Mr. Daly, who had interviewed Gotti about the brawl, acknowledged Gotti as he walked past the car and left the area.


Mr. Daly, who retired as a first-grade detective in 1991 after 34 years on the job, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. In 1993, when he was chief investigator for the Queens district attorney's office, Mr. Daly denied taking a $10,000 bribe from the elder Gotti for an undisclosed favor when that allegation surfaced at a Queens corruption trial....


Mr. Daly... as a member of the 106th Precinct detective unit in Ozone Park... questioned Junior about the murder as well as about the possibility that the deadly brawl had been a reaction to an attack against Gotti 10 days earlier, according to police reports obtained by Gang Land.


According to the reports, Cennamo, who is also identified as John Cennamo in the reports, was one of four patrons at the Silver Fox who had identified Caputo as the knife-wielding suspect who killed Silva. After Cennamo's death, the other witnesses either left the state or recanted, and the prosecutors dropped the charges against Caputo in 1985.


Shortly after the slaying, Junior told the feds, he flew to Ft. Lauderdale to wait for "things to cool down," driving back to New York later with his father, the sources said.

During Junior's discussion with the feds — it was attended by his lawyers at the time, Jeffrey Lichtman and Marc Fernich, Assistant U.S Attorney Jennifer Rodgers, former prosecutors Joon Kim and Robert Buehler, and FBI agent Cindy Peil — Gotti denied any role in the slaying, sources said.


Even though the proffer session occurred before his first trial for the 1992 shooting of Curtis Sliwa, Gotti neither volunteered nor was asked any questions about the Sliwa assault or any other charges in the racketeering indictment, sources said.


One subject that did come up, sources said, was the 1986 shooting of Luchese underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, who was wounded by a team of Gambino associates who had been sent on their mission by Ruggiero. That assault was a focal point of the racketeering and murder trial of Mafia Cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa that was then set to start the following month.


It was while discussing that subject, the sources said, that Gotti made his only mention of Gambino capo Daniel Marino, telling the feds that Marino had "washed his hands" of the situation when he learned that his nephew, James Hydell, had taken part in the shooting, and that Casso was likely to kill Hydell in retaliation....


After the Casso shooting, Ruggiero was placed "on the shelf" for ordering the attack, Junior told the feds. Despite orders from his father to shun Ruggiero, Junior continued to speak to him, and was told by Ruggiero that he and mob associates Wilford "Willie Boy" Johnson and Joseph Watts had killed the witness to the Silva slaying, the sources said. 

A few years later, according to the sources, when Junior and a few of his buddies were arrested for assaulting a few patrons at a Long Island nightclub — the charges were later dropped when the victims forgot who had hit them — the Gambinos passed more cash to Mr. Daly to keep Junior's name from resurfacing in the Silver Fox case, Junior told the feds....

Gotti's current lawyer, Charles Carnesi: "He has acknowledged that there was a meeting, but he steadfastly maintains that he did not incriminate anyone in any criminal activity during the meeting, nor did he ever consider cooperating or testifying against anyone. Had it been his desire to make such a deal, his lawyers at the time would have made the deal."

Is any of this in Shadow of My  Father?

Damn, I hope someone writes a book that goes into the actual facts.....

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