John Gotti, Gambino Boss's Grandson & Namesake, Gets 2.5 Additional Years

On Wednesday, March 14, in Brooklyn Federal District Court, John J. Gotti, the grandson and namesake of the Gambino crime family boss, was sentenced to five years in prison.

Gotti Howard Beach home.

Last June, Gotti pleaded guilty to torching the car of someone who'd had the audacity to cut off aging Bonnano capo Vincent Asaro on Cross Bay Boulevard in Howard Beach, Queens.




Gotti also admitted that two weeks after the road-rage episode, he and two others — after presenting a note that said they had a bomb — robbed $6,000 from a Maspeth, Queens, bank.

Gotti was arrested in August 2016 -- on the exact same day that the Fed's rounded up dozens of wiseguys in the East Coast LCN Enterprise case. The only trial that resulted from that case so far was the recent Joseph (Skinny Joey) Merlino mistrial.

Gotti's attorney, Charles Carnesi, who also defended his uncle, told the judge in his client's defense that just before the arson and bank robbery charges were filed, Gotti had been sentenced to eight years in prison for illegally selling opioids. Requesting leniency, he noted that after the drug arrest “a light goes on in (Gotti's) mind” and he recognized “the disastrous path his life was on."

Grandson of one-time former Gambino boss.

In court filings, federal prosecutors said that the arson and the bank robbery were “the defendant’s fourth serious criminal case.” They also highlighted that in addition to selling drugs — Gotti was filmed taking pills and offering some to an undercover officer — he had also been sentenced in a gun case.

The courtroom was not without colorful asides. For one, as per a New York Times report: John A. Gotti, the son of the former boss (who died in 2002), embraced a court sketch artist and displayed "genuine affection, telling his younger relatives that the woman had not only covered his trials (plural) but also “grandpa’s.”

In a letter, John A. Gotti noted that his nephew had been raised in Howard Beach— "a community that he acknowledged has both “law-abiding citizens and at times professional criminals.”

There, the young man “grew up bearing the name ‘Gotti,’ with all of the connotations and condemnations that the name bears.”

Judge Allyne R. Ross sentenced Gotti to five years — half of which, she said, would run concurrently with the eight years he is already serving on a state case.

Gotti apologized to his family and then to the court (though he had no problem also describing it as nothing more than a "waste of taxpayer money.")

After the proceedings, the judge also ordered Gotti to pay restitution of $20,000 for the motorist’s incinerated car.

Gotti's uncle, the former Gambino acting boss, spoke to the press outside the courtroom.

“He’s a soldier,” John (Junior Gotti) said of his nephew.

Good thing the FBI wasn't recording him using that kind of language. The Fed's love that stuff....

And yes, I'm joking.