Junior Gotti Punked Out in the Pod, Says Co-Defendant
COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE
In 1998, John A. "Junior" Gotti III was slapped with a wide-ranging RICO indictment (the "Christmas Tree RICO," so named because it includes people allegedly involved in different crimes packaged together for procedural purposes under the top name on the indictment. In this case, it was Junior.)
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| "He abused everybody in his past. He didn't give anybody a break in any realm." |
This was the "Scores Case," which occurred prior to the sweeping indictment linking him to three mob-related hits and a host of other felonies, initiated in Florida, that led to Junior's four RICO trials.
It also occurred prior to Junior's proffer session with the Feds, documented in an FBI 302. That meeting occurred at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in lower Manhattan on January 18, 2005.
The Scores indictment included a grab bag of crimes. Junior was charged with being the acting boss of the Gambino crime family. Various counts for crimes such as loansharking, bookmaking and extortion were included.
On April 6, when jury selection was to begin, Gotti surprised everyone near him when he agreed to accept a government offer to serve 77 months for extortion, loansharking, gambling, mortgage fraud and tax evasion. He also forfeited $1.5 million in cash and property.
"A large contingent" of participants in the case were unhappy about Gotti's last-minute decision to take the plea deal, Jerry Capeci reported at the time.
"Guys like Gambino capos John (Jackie Nose) D'Amico and Louis Ricco and soldiers Craig Depalma and Mario Antonicello -- and many others -- had to accept prison terms six to 10 months longer because Gotti rejected the so-called "global plea" deal that was offered in December."
Gerald Shargel told Capeci that Gotti, in the end, "found himself in a no-win situation. If he was convicted, he would be sentenced to time in jail." If he were convicted, he would get major time; if acquitted, every prosecutor in the area would be gunning for him. "He did this for closure and finality," Shargel said. "It's a nice end where he can get all the guns pointed at him out of the way."
There's a bunch of guys who wish Gotti had figured that out a few months earlier," Capeci concluded.
One of a number of these codefendants was with Junior earlier, when he was arrested and placed in Valhalla, where he remained until he was allowed to post bail in the Scores case.
We recently spoke with one of the co-defendants in the Scores case who served time with Junior at Valhalla. He requested anonymity.
He was not among those surprised when Junior took a plea. "He is the biggest phony there is," our source said of Junior. "He abused everybody in his past. He didn't give anybody a break in any realm."
Our source spoke about the events leading up to the Scores indictment, carefully delineating Junior's role. He also told us about interesting things that happened in Valhalla.
From the very beginning, all the guys in the Scores case were told: "'The boss of this family says no one is taking a plea.' That was Junior's opening statement to everyone in the case," our source told us.
Please note, as previously written, Gotti did take a plea. It's the one he visited his father to discuss, all of which was filmed and presented as evidence.
So what this means is: While he was meeting with his father and a barrage of attorneys to discuss copping a plea, he had previously ordered all the other guys in the indictment not to accept a plea. Not accepting a plea was in fact an order handed down by the acting boss of the Gambino crime family.
"He's a lying manipulative rat; nothing more or less. That is a bullshit maneuver," said our source, who also copped a plea, as did everyone on the indictment, including Greg DePalma. DePalma always, always took them to trial, but as we noted in a previous story, he accepted a plea in the Scores case.
The source was intimately involved in the Scores case and carefully parsed Junior's role. "There was a single payment to him of $100,000," he said. The payment, he said, was the result of something that had happened a year earlier. A friend of John Gotti's was thrown out of the upscale strip club. Eventually, the guy found Junior and there was Junior's ticket to a payoff... "You threw one of my friends out of the club!!"
Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo handled the payment for Junior, including the actual handing over of the cash. Junior Gotti promptly handed back $10,000 for Mikey Scars to pocket. It didn't stay in his pocket for long, however. "Junior makes up a bullshit story and Mikey Scars hands back the $10,000. Junior had the money back within the hour" of it being given to him in the first place.
But it was in Valhalla that John Junior truly lost his guys, at least those indicted and held without bail at Valhalla.
The scene is the weight room. There was one of those Universal weight-lifting machines. One morning in January of 1998, Junior had words with another inmate, a black man. (We only note his race because many of you undoubtedly understand that in jail or prison, race plays a key role. A person stays with those of his own race.)
"It was a 'who is next?' kind of thing. And they had words." Eventually, the black guy said, "There's nothing between us but air... "
Seeing Gotti balk, the other inmate knew a brawl wasn't looming. "Now it doesn't matter," the black guy said and began using the machine.
"You know what Junior is supposed to do, right? He's supposed to take a 50 pound weight and split the guy's head open. He totally and utterly dogged it. I was standing right there. 'Hit him,' I said. 'I'll help you.'
"He says, 'No. I'm not doing that. It'll be in the Daily News and make it worse.'"
Asked if a lot of the guys indicted in the Scores case and held there without bail were present in the weight room when this happened, our source said, "There were enough guys there for it to be a major embarrassment for all of us."
Junior also was playing a game with all the guys under him as to the charges in the indictment, he added. "He's playing everyone against each other. He's trying to get some people to take some of the weight off of him. He was playing everyone against each other."
While Junior apparently didn't want to fight a stranger in the weight room, he had no problem with getting nasty with his own guys, who tended not to argue back. There was always a fear factor there, our source noted. Junior was acting boss and his father, a different story entirely, was still alive in Marion and the official boss of the crime family.
Meanwhile, Junior was paying off guards to smuggle in Rogaine.
"That's his priority," our source told us.
"He ends up bringing a battery of attorneys. He made it so much worse. There were news stories almost every single day."
Asked about John Alite, our source said, "Alite was John Junior's guy. Alite was doing all the work for Junior.
"Junior was full of shit. He was a manipulating brat. He was debriefing -- he's right up there with all the other phonies in the mob."
He further noted: "Anybody who tells you differently is lying."
Our source mentioned Peter Gotti, who was made acting boss in 1998. "The guy sat on a jury trial. The person was indicted for beating up a cop."
"Not to mention he was a functioning illiterate," the source added.
"He was a made guy. As soon as he's a made guy and a story goes around that he sat in a jury and put a guy away, and the story is then verified, he's supposed to be killed.
"Guys died for a lot less" than what Peter Gotti was guilty of, the source said.
What makes this all the more incredible is the fact that John Gotti Senior "was a hardcore gangster.
"If you got out of line, you got killed."