Former Gotti Consiglieri Frankie Loc Dies In Prison

Frank (Frankie Loc ) Locascio, the former Gambino consigliere serving life in prison for a 1992 murder racketeering conviction, died on October 1, 2021, at age 89, as per the BOP inmate locator website.

Frank (Frankie Loc ) Locascio and John Gotti
Frank (Frankie Loc ) Locascio, left, and John Gotti.

 
Locascio, for more than three decades, had been serving a life sentence following his 1992 conviction for the slaying of Gambino wiseguy Louis DiBono, who was shot three times in the head in October 1990 in an underground parking garage at the World Trade Center. 

DiBono earned Gotti’s wrath by ignoring his orders to come in. Some wiseguys were appalled that Gotti put a hit on DiBono for missing meetings, saying that the former guy, Paul Castellano, never would've whacked someone for simply missed some meetings.

The DiBono murder was one of five pinned on the Dapper Don by the jury. Locascio, who was on trial alongside Gotti, was found guilty of the DiBono murder and conspiracy to murder Gaetano Vastola, a DeCavalcante wiseguy.

Locascio had been trying to get out from under his life sentence since 2010, when he had a sudden revelation about certain conversations that were recorded via a bug planted in the apartment above the Ravenite Social Club in Little Italy. Locascio argued he could be heard in a recorded conversation from 1989 attempting to save DiBono’s life by telling Gotti that DiBono would compensate him to the tune of $50,000 to make amends for the absences, according to the filing. Gotti nixed the idea and considered Locascio's gambit such an insult (according to Locascio and Gravano) that he broke Locascio down from underboss to acting consiglieri.

Sammy, who was bumped up to underboss because of Frankie Loc's demotion, tried to help Locascio by signing an affidavit in November 2018 that claimed Locascio had nothing to do with DiBono's murder.

In his affidavit, Gravano says he was never asked at trial whether Locascio agreed with the decision to kill DiBono. Nor was he asked if Locascio approved the hit.

“Frank had no role in the planning of, nor did he participate in any way in the murder or conspiracy to murder Louis DiBono,” Gravano noted. “… LoCascio’s role as a member of the administration did not require him to agree with the ‘boss’ in every situation. Clearly, Gotti, as the boss of the family, had the sole authority to make the decision to kill DiBono.” (Frank Donnelly of the Staten Island Advance recently reported on the text of the affidavit, as well as Judge Glasser's reply to Gravano.)

“(One of the recorded discussions) shows that Frank tried to save DiBono’s life, and he did not agree with nor approve the decision to kill DiBono,” Gravano wrote.

Gotti told Gravano he “strongly resented” Locascio suggestion that he take the cash and spare DiBono’s life, Gravano noted.

Brooklyn federal court Judge I. Leo Glasser questioned the validity of Gravano’s statements and torpedoed them.

Gravano, he noted, was not present during the intercepted conversation between Gotti and LoCascio.

Yet Gravano interpreted the meaning of LoCascio’s words without having heard his tone of voice or seeing his face, said the judge. Nor had he discussed the conversation with LoCascio.

“It is, remarkably, the reading of his mind or divine enlightenment some 30 years later, that ‘shows’ him what his words meant,” Glasser noted.

“Frank LoCascio was not trying to save the life of Louie DiBono. He predicted that DiBono would try to save his own,” the judge said. “Throughout the (trial) transcript, one becomes aware that going against, disobeying, or disagreeing with Gotti is fraught with danger, and Gravano and LoCascio knew it.”

LoCascio’s “utter silence” on Gotti’s “stark pronouncement” to murder DiBono “bespeaks a wordless assent,” opined Glasser.
"Frankie Loc says he didn't kill Louie DiBono. Okay, but what about all the other guys you did kill, Frankie? He was a coldblooded murderer who liked to chop people up. When his best friend went to jail, they killed both his sons on the same day. Frankie Loc okayed it. That's what I was told."

-----

It’s safe to say that the “love” John Gotti expresses for Frank Loc didn’t last very long after the arrests in December 1990.

A few years later, after Gravano's Underboss memoir was released in 1997, Gotti reportedly put a hit on his former consiglieri. The hit supposedly had something to do with an event recalled in Underboss. Gravano describes an incident in which Locascio, in prison with Gotti and Gravano in 1991, gave Sammy a stolen orange before offering one to Gotti. Gotti became furious and loudly belittled Locascio in front of other inmates. Later, Gravano said, a humiliated Locascio tearfully vowed to murder Gotti, stating, "The minute I get out, I'm killing this [expletive]."

Gravano says he and Locascio then made a pact to kill Gotti if they ever got out of jail.

"Frankie said, 'Sammy, two things. I'll bring him to the party myself, (there would be a victory party as a ruse to lure him, supposedly) and I get to be the shooter.’”

According to law enforcement sources and court papers, an infuriated Gotti, who was serving a life sentence in Marion, Ill., learned of the passage about the argument over the orange and reached out to the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang to kill Locascio.

Federal prison officials in Marion allegedly caught Gotti complaining about the Locascio passage on video cameras. Without identifying Gotti, prison officials said in court papers "a possible 'contract' has been put on [Locascio's] life by his former Mafia associates.

"Three law enforcement sources confirmed Gotti put out the contract. The alleged plot against Locascio first surfaced in court papers when he filed suit against prison officials to be let out of solitary at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo. In court testimony Aug. 19, James Baker, special investigative agent for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, confirmed, "I was informed there was a million-dollar wet contract out on [Locascio]."

In prison terms, Baker said, a "wet contract" means "anybody can pick it up. If a nut over in a cellblock somewhere was to do the contract, he would get awarded the money. A wet contract is just open for anyone."

Some sources, however, say Gotti specifically "reached out" to the Aryan Brotherhood. Baker testified that he contacted an FBI agent in New York on Aug. 7 "to ascertain if the contract, this contract that they had talked about, was valid. He said, yes, in fact it was." On Aug. 20, Missouri Federal Judge Russell Clark ordered that Locascio be kept in isolation, stating, "The evidence establishes that [Locascio], at 65 years old, may well spend the rest of his life in administrative segregation because of the potential 'contract' on his life."

Gotti attorney Bruce Cutler, said in 1998 that the death plot was a hoax aimed at keeping Gotti behind bars in Marion “while damaging attempts to free his son,” John A. (Junior) Gotti, who was then on bail pending racketeering charges.






Comments