Why I Refuse to Purchase Junior's Ebook....

This is my opinion.... published on January 19, 2015...

 I nearly hit the purchase button, but I realized long ago that I buy too many ebooks and I have spent more money on Amazon than I'd ever care to admit.

So I downloaded the sample first for In the Shadow of My Father, the new ebook available tonight on Amazon.com.

Meanwhile, this book is full of untold revelations in Junior’s personal story. [But are these "untold revelations" at all accurate?
John A. Gotti's first literary effort is for sale now.


As I skimmed Peter Lance's Forward, most of which is an ongoing advertisement for his terrorism books, I read something that nearly blew my mind. I read it again to make sure I had read what I actually thought I had read.

No, I thought. It can't be. Charles Carnesi can't be bragging about putting a journalist on the stand to get her to reveal her sources....



But there is simply no other way to say it. That's exactly what he was doing.

"Some agent intimately involved in the case must have had a relationship with a New York Post reporter... she starts writing a series of articles with revelations she alleges are coming from a law enforcement source."


This is the USA and we have free speech in this country, Mr. Carnesi.


Here I'm going to provide full quotes from the top part of the story -- not cherry pick the sentences I want you to read (versus the ones I don't)....

John “Junior” Gotti broke omerta in a failed bid to win his freedom – a shocking decision his “Dapper Don” dad would have considered the ultimate betrayal.

The younger Gotti disregarded the Mafia oath of silence and ratted out members of the Gambino crime family during a daylong proffer session with federal prosecutors in the spring of 2005, sources familiar with the meeting told The Post.

The mob scion fessed up to a host of crimes and fingered numerous cohorts for mob-related activity in the hopes of getting out from under racketeering charges that threaten to put him behind bars for 30 years and force him to forfeit $25 million.

Sources said Gotti did not cop to any of the crimes he’s currently charged with – most notably the high-profile kidnapping of radio host Curtis Sliwa.

Gotti admitted to his long-suspected role in the stabbing of Danny Silva, 24, during a brawl at the Silver Fox Bar in Ozone Park in March 1983, a source familiar with the meeting said.

Gotti admitted he was among a group of men who fought with Silva and that he wielded a knife – but said he suffered serious puncture wounds and acted in self-defense.

His lawyer, Charles Carnesi, said Gotti had never admitted to personally stabbing Silva and said he would neither confirm nor deny that the proffer session took place.

Gotti’s bid to become a turncoat fell through after he refused to give the feds the full story – he agreed only to provide incriminating information about certain cohorts but insisted on protecting others, sources said.

Instead, Gotti went on trial for racketeering in August 2005, mounting a ferocious defense in which defense lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman conceded Gotti had run the Gambino crime family for his father – but that he left the mob in 1999....
I am so sorry that this gave Junior Gotti problems with one of the four RICO trials the poor guy had to face, none of which he won, I might add. A trial ending in a mistrial -- is, well, a mistrial... Maybe if he was not the boss of a crime family he wouldn't have been arrested and put on trial so many times, which makes me wonder: Why in God's name did he write this book. How many AUAs are going to be reading this thing all night? Why couldn't he just let go of this bullshit if he wants to be free and clear? Is his hatred of John Alite so pure, so complete that he puts himself at risk for a fifth prosecution? That has to be the case. Then, you have to wonder why.

(And by the way her story about the Feds delivering subpoenas was not news to the New York Mafia, John's target audience at that time didn't need to read the newspaper to learn what the Feds said when the gangsters were handed the subpoenas. No, sir, they didn't need to read it because they heard it from the agents themselves when those slips of papers where handed to them by the FBI agents.... Mr. Carnesi is sort of weirdly providing confirmation for what the reporter wrote, sort of highlighting that her reporting was balls-on accurate, only he doesn't seem to realize or care about that.)

And (un)surprisingly, Carnesi didn't quote the article she wrote the next month in which she names those guys that Junior ratted on. Perhaps because that story is based on a story written by Jerry Capeci on Gangland News. Carnesi enlists Capeci as a sort of ally later on in Lance's endless Forward -- a brother in arms, so to speak.

SQUEAL ‘N’ DEAL ‘JUNIOR’ IS A RAT – FINGERED FATHER’S COHORTS: REP

In a move that his father would have considered the ultimate betrayal, John “Junior” Gotti ratted out three of his dad’s former cohorts when he secretly met with the feds in a failed bid to win his freedom, according to a new report. 

Gotti broke the mob oath of omerta in January 2005 by fingering Gambino capo Daniel Marino, soldier John “Johnny G” Gammarano and longtime mob associate Joseph “Joe the German” Watts, the online column Gang Land News reported yesterday. 

The three – who are all currently on the street following various stints behind bars – were later hit with grand-jury subpoenas in a sweeping probe of the Gambino crime family last spring, sources told The Post before a gag order was issued last month....


So next we read: “So we go into court and we challenge Kati Cornell Smith to disclose the source of the leaks, believing that they came from Ted Otto. She invokes the New York Shield Law which protects reporters’ sources. But when asked if she does have a ‘law enforcement source,’ she affirms under oath that her story is truthful in that regard."

I am sorry but I don't get the point of this entire part of the argument. So she affirms under oath that her story is truthful... Ah, I get it now: " truthful in that regard." Meaning perhaps untruthful in some other unidentified regard? Thats called a lot of things: innuendo. Other words: insinuation, suggestion, intimation, implication, hint, overtone, undertone,allusion....

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. We're not in a trial, Mr. Carnesi. We are in court, though -- the court of public opinion.

He's smearing a reporter for writing a series of exclusive articles that were not favorable to his client but were accurate in at least one regard, according to Carnesi. He's trying to discredit her because Junior doesn't like being called a rat, doesn't want it known that he ratted out three guys -- that we know of.... I am practicing some innuendo myself. You catch it? There is more of it to come.

But first a quick note about that Shield Law:

New York state courts recognize a qualified "reporter's privilege" based on the U.S. Constitution and the New York Constitution. The precise scope of these protections is uncertain. New York state courts do not recognize any common law privilege for newsgatherers.

Federal courts in the 2nd Circuit Court, which encompasses New York, recognize a qualified reporter's privilege based on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the common law. The level of protection depends on whether you obtained the information in question in exchange for a promise of confidentiality.

The Privacy Protection Act may protect you against the search and/or seizure, in connection with a criminal investigation or prosecution, of materials you possess in connection with a purpose to disseminate to the public a newspaper, book, broadcast, or other similar form of public communication. This federal statutory protection applies regardless of the state in which you live.


The First Amendment to the Constitution "prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights."

Now, onward to Mr. Gotti. You make a salient point regarding the year 1940. On the October day after the day your father was born, Italy invaded Greece. But in the scheme of things does it really matter that Italy invaded Greece in 1940? As a man of Italian (and German) blood, I daresay WWII is not something we Italians should look back on with great pride.

I'd wager that not many people in general probably cared a whole lot about Italy invading Greece in 1940.... not when only one year earlier Nazi Germany invaded Poland, igniting World War II.

The Greeks were likely even less concerned than others of the time period, I'd add. The whole invasion was Il Duce's greatest blunder -- and that says a lot. He was a man who tended to blunder.

The Greeks succeeded in hurling the Italian forces back into Albania [Italy had invaded Albania earlier. Albania!!So, the Greeks pushed Il Duce's forces back into... Albania and they did this in about five minutes. No, actually it took about a week. Then the Axis power spent  three months fighting for its very life against the fearsome Greek offensive. At the same time, about half the Italian fleet had been destroyed by a British carrier-based attack. Mussolini was utterly humiliated.

As the History website notes: "Mussolini surprised everyone with this move against Greece; even his ally, Adolf Hitler, was caught off-guard, especially since the Duce had led Hitler to believe he had no such intention. Hitler denounced the move as a major strategic blunder. According to Hitler, Mussolini should have concentrated on North Africa, continuing the advance into Egypt. Even Mussolini's own chief of army staff found out about the invasion only after the fact. But despite being warned off an invasion of Greece by his own generals, despite the lack of preparedness on the part of his military, despite that it would mean getting bogged down in a mountainous country during the rainy season against an army willing to fight tooth and nail to defend its autonomy, Mussolini moved ahead out of sheer hubris..."


Hubris...
excessive pride or self-confidence.synonyms: arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, hauteur, pride, self-importance, egotism,pomposity, superciliousness, superiority;
(in Greek tragedy) excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.


I also want to mention one final part I read in the sample (or was it the excerpt?) that convinced me not to buy the book.

John describes how and why he got into "The Life." I am quoting from that Forward (previously, I wrote my take on it, but as is often the case, you can't always beat the writer's original description).

Meanwhile, this book is full of untold revelations in Junior’s personal story. [But are these "untold revelations" at all accurate? By this I mean, true to the facts -- accurate. Or are they an interpretation that paints them in the best picture humanly possible?].

“This Life was not the path I had originally chosen,” he told me. “I graduated from New York Military Academy on June 5th, 1982. I was looking to go into a ROTC compatible college. I needed two more years of ROTC and that would qualify me as a Second Lieutenant in the Army. That was where I wanted to go. That was the carrier choice I had made.

“But fate had a different life in store for me. A couple of weeks into my 19th year I was involved in a bar fight. There were some kids there from Ozone Park, high on Angel Dust. We were from Howard Beach. One of my friends dated a girl who hung out there. One thing led to another and this kid kept shoving into me. We got into a fight, and I hit him. Pretty soon it erupted into a free-for-all. I got stabbed.

Several other guys got stabbed and one poor kid died from his wounds. That changed my life forever. To keep an eye on him, John Jr. says his father “remanded me to house arrest” at the Bergin Club.

I'll buy Gotti's Rules instead of this one.


I find the "kid kept shoving into me" part impossible to believed. Amazing how he notes his own injury before letting on: "Several other guys got stabbed and one poor kid died from his wounds."

The poor kid who died didn't even warrant his own sentence in Gotti's version. By the way: Does anyone not know the real story behind how this kid died? And how, shortly thereafter, a witness was murdered? They kind of forced him to commit suicide. I kid you not.

Another excerpt -- and please note an NYPD detective is among the sources here:


The NYPD didn't question John A. (Junior) Gotti in a barroom slaying despite an identification from a witness who was soon found hanging from a tree, two cops testified Thursday.

Within hours of the March 1983 slaying in the Silver Fox, witness John Cennamo was in Jamaica Hospital shouting at police that Gotti fatally stabbed Daniel Silva, retired Detective James McKinley testified.

"We all know who did it!" Cennamo shouted after McKinley arrived at the hospital. "Johnny Boy Gotti!"

McKinley later interviewed Cennamo at the 106th Precinct stationhouse, where he said he saw Gotti and three other knife-wielding men attack Silva.

Prosecutor Jay Trezevant asked if anyone ever attempted to ask Junior about the killing.

"No," McKinley replied.

An earlier witness in Gotti's racketeering trial testified that Junior's notorious father, John Gotti Sr., shut down the murder probe with a $10,000 bribe to an NYPD detective.

Under cross-examination, McKinley acknowledged arresting Gotti crony Mark Caputo for the Silva murder - although the case later fell apart. Fourteen months after the killing, Cennamo, 22, was found dead - a white sweater wrapped around his neck - from a low-hanging tree, prosecution witness Joseph Stillitano said.

The retired cop said the death had the look of a homicide, since the victim was "hanging too low." Cennamo's knees were almost touching the ground behind the Linden Blvd., Queens, laundermat, he recalled.

Another detective overruled Stillitano, calling it a suicide.

Prosecutors claimed Gotti was responsible for the Cennamo death, saying he bragged about the killing.

Meanwhile, Gotti's defense team argued he was the target of an overzealousFBI, and subpoenaed the personnel and discipline records of FBI Special Agent Theodore Otto.

Prosecutors filed paperwork to block the subpoena, saying Otto's file had nothing to do with the murder charges against Gotti.
Here are the two takeaways:

  •  John Gotti Sr., shut down the murder probe with a $10,000 bribe to an NYPD detective.

  • Fourteen months after the killing, [the witness against Gotti, John] Cennamo, 22, was found dead - a white sweater wrapped around his neck - from a low-hanging tree, prosecution witness Joseph Stillitano said.

Everyone has a right to author their memoirs -- or a book of any kind. But I don't have to buy it. I certainly don't need to read this book to know that it is exactly what Mr. Lance said it is not. To use his words: This is indeed an "apologia told by an ex-wiseguy who cut a deal with the Feds" -- only the deal blew up somehow, and Junior will do anything to extricate himself from the proffer session in which he gave up three older mobsters who helped put untold riches into the Gotti pocket.

Propaganda is something John Gotti Jr should know about. He seems to be a WWII buff. The Nazis knew quite a bit about practicing the art. That sly fox Joseph Goebbels even managed to evoke the prophetic words of Nostradamus to support the lost German cause...

Propaganda
information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
"he was charged with distributing enemy propaganda"

Propaganda is not truth. It is creating arguments to sway people to think what you want them to think. It is, in its worst form, a kind of brainwashing.

So I am not even going to read this book. I'm not going to debate anyone about this decision in the comments below, either. 

Buy the book if you want. At least he's not running a crime family and committing crimes.... I really hope this doesn't come back to bite him on the ass. No on should be penalized for exercising their right to free speech. But I bet Joe Bonanno had no idea that the book he was writing would lead to the Commission Case, which put away all the old-school Cosa Nostra bosses, except for Gotti's father -- who many said destroyed whatever was left following the Commission Case.

Before I get off my computer for today, I want to ask a question... How many of you are familiar with what happened to Robin Lynn Vitulli?

She was killed in 1985 while dating Junior's uncle Vincent, a Gambino soldier and the youngest brother of John Gotti Senior. The story has been told that she slapped Peter Gotti in the face inside a disco at the Kennedy Inn, a now-defunct Queens motel, and that Peter then ordered her to be killed.

This was in 1985.... Remember, Gotti Senior was on the street; this was the summer before he launched his coup against Paul Castellano.

Robin Lynn Vitulli's body was discovered in a pile of trash, her legs sticking out. She was strangled to death.

"At least one witness has told probers that members of Gotti’s crew led waitress Robin Lynn Vitulli out of a Queens disco the night of her murder and put her into a white van, according to a police source," the Post reported.

This came out during Alite's testimony in the fourth trial. We go to the report: Gotti trial stirs daughter's rage over slain mom - NY Daily News: "[Alite] testified that Vincent Gotti had strangled a woman in a Queens motel.... The testimony ignited a courtroom shouting match between Alite and his former best man.

"I'll kill you," Gotti mouthed silently at Alite as the star witness testified in Manhattan Federal Court.

"You got something to say to me?" Alite barked as he left the witness stand.

"You fag!" Gotti screamed back. "Did I kill little girls? You're a punk. You're a dog. You're a dog. You always were a dog your whole life, you punk dog."

Gotti's attorney tried to blame the slaying on Alite, who laughed the charge off."

I know what Alite tried to tell the reporter in the story that came out a couple of days ago. 

Well, I don't actually know -- I shouldn't say that. But I think I know what Alite said, and the reporter revised....

Ex-mobster on ‘spoiled brat’ Junior Gotti | New York Post: "John “Junior” Gotti was a “self-mutilating” stunad with no street cred, according to his former best friend and mob turncoat John Alite. 

“He’s like Kim Jong-un — a spoiled brat that took advantage of guys around us by his dad’s authority,” the former Gambino crime-family enforcer seethed to The Post. 

“Ever since we were kids, he’s self-mutilating himself, burning himself with cigars,” Alite said in his first interview before a book by George Anastasia — “Gotti’s Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia” (Dey St. Books) — hits shelves on Jan. 27. “He would play drinking games with other guys, and part of these drinking games was if you lose, you gotta burn your hands with cigars,” he continued. 

“These are his ideas."

That is an odd thing to say about someone, isn't it? A self-mutilator...

Cosa Nostra News: “Junior” Gotti Stabbed Outside Syosset CVS: "Former Gambino crime family boss John A. Gotti Jr. says he was stabbed in the stomach while trying to break up a fight outside a Long Island drugstore, a law enforcement source told the Daily News. [It happens to be the only CVS on Long Island without working surveillance cameras onsite at the time, need I even bother to add?]

"Gotti, the son of late “Dapper Don” John Gotti, told Syosset Hospital staff he took a knife to the gut on Sunday night while trying to stop two strangers from fighting in the parking lot of the CVS across from the Long Island Rail Road station in Syosset. The mob scion then made his own way to the hospital, where staffers called police because of the nature of the wound, another source said. "



Comments

  1. Susan DeSantis FerrittoJan 20, 2015, 5:48:00 AM

    Great article Ed....I won't buy the book.

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  2. I won't be buying this book either. Thank you Ed!

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  3. Excellent Ed. I despise Junior and will never read this book. He's doing it to try and counter Alite's book coming out next week (which I preordered from Amazon already). I can't wait to see the.bombshells Alite drops in it. Not to mention it's written by the number 2 man in the industry, George Anastasia (I still consider Capesi to be number 1).

    Cheers,

    Mick from Jersey

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  4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi7VHr_S_MQ

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  5. Think I'll have to buy Alite's book. I'm really interested in Junior, he came across well on that 60 mins interview, I'd like to hear the stories about what he's really like.

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  6. Anyone remember the Alien and Sedition Act? The Constitution is just a piece of paper. If some political hack wants your ass you're done, Constitution be damned. The Government was going to get Gotti senior regardless, just like it will get you to if you don't pony up your protection money, err..a. I mean taxes.

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  7. Still trying to make a buck off his old man. Pathetic.

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  8. Me too -- JC, then close second, GA....

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  9. Ed ~ I think Gene was the most stand up Gotti. Peter was dumber than a tree stump and we all know about John Sr.

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  10. Its in his dna mike pathetic but true.
    street guy mentality its what they
    do milk the cow till it can.t be milked any more
    then sell it for dog food in his case incriminate
    himself some more the apple doesn.t fall far from the tree.philly

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  11. Is it possible he stab himself ur saying ?
    Philly

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  12. I'm torn. I bought the e-book. I think he tries very hard to shame the government throughout all of his trials and tribulations and I'm only halfway through the book. At the end of the day, he is human in that I think it's very possible that at one point or another he did actually want out. Having children often changes one's priorities. I do feel like his Father did make sense in stating that he chose this life - stick it out. What I keep asking myself - and wonder if he does also - is if all of this was really worth anything. He didn't spend a life time in jail but he still managed to put a damper on his children's growing up. Those are things that they won't forget. That last name will never be forgotten despite the fact that he now insists on leading an ordinary life. I also wonder about how others who stayed in The Life treat him now? With turncoats everywhere - do people even care that he's left?

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  13. What drives my reporting on this is the fact that the media goes to sleep whenever he writes or says anything. I am somewhat disappointed in Jerry Capeci, who has always been my hero. He won't call this guy out on his bullshit. And Jerry Capeci is the man who can certainly do it. He shunned the challenge and now I feel George Anastasia is "going it alone" with his book. It may not matter to him or anyone else, but I am certainly going to back him up in any way that I can. JOURNALISM IS THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH.... He casually references or ignores what he considers "natural deaths" when they are clear cases of murder.

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  14. From what i read and based on that alone i don.t think many people care for him in or out of the life. As a mobster he can no longer be trusted. And as a normal person on the street he just doesn.t fit in and never will if he were smart he should move and change his name just for the sake of his kids but he won.t. So i think someone will pick him off someday or he might just take his own life either way nobody really cares. Kust my opinion. Philly

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  15. I do agree with you on that. There are a few things he's glazed over in the book that if you did any actual fact-checking; portrays an entirely different story. I don't know what the purpose of him releasing the book was. Other than shaming the government - nothing else. He claims all he wanted after leaving The Life was closure. I believe he had opportunities for that for several years. This could add to his detriment in some way, re-igniting an old issue or beef with other individuals. Now that the movie plans are scrapped, I would imagine it would be disappointing based on what I've read so far.

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  16. I hear what you're saying. I don't get why he wouldn't just sort of fade away. Releasing these books doesn't serve too much of a purpose now after everything. I'm surprised he hasn't yet been sought after - I thought that was his fate after this mysterious stabbing that took place recently. There must be an old head in the Family who guarantees his safety? For now. They're all dying out and/or becoming informants.

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  17. I haven.t read the book or will i he was a spoiled bratt
    and his uncles have gone out of there way to keep him safe
    and he just can.t shut that mouth there
    fore he.s probably burned his ladt bridge. With this book and George Anastasia.s
    to come out soon this will be his waterloo sort to speak.
    John jr just don.t get it and his arrogance will be his end.Philly

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  18. Johnny no matter how many books u write or how many storys u tell u.ll always be the spoiled little punk from the neighborhood that Jr will never change as long as u live that.s ur destiny daddy.s little bratt. Oh ya and u could.nt even make a pimple on his ass let alone even try to walk in his shoes. He was Cosa Nostra and Stand up. That Jr u will never be. Philly

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  19. Can you imagine what it takes to have caught Adolf Hitler off guard? LOL!!!

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  20. You have to remember the Feds targeted him for a reason. He didn't win any of those trials, they were mistrials. His book is spin, public relations, not fact. He's been ostracized by the mob. But there's one story I haven't written yet about Junior. The info didn't come from Alite either.

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