Gotti Files


"Listen carefully to me. You'll never see another guy like me if you live to be 5000."
John Gotti, Jan. 29, 1998 


As Jerry Capeci wrote in his obituary of one of the most famous gangsters of the 20th century:

Say what you will about John Joseph Gotti Jr., he had a way with words, words that will survive long after he is buried in St. John's Cemetery in Queens beside his son Frank and his father, John Sr.


When the Dapper Don burst on the big scene shortly after orchestrating the execution of Mafia boss Paul Castellano (right) in 1985, reporters asked him whether he had taken over the Gambino Crime Family.

Gotti's Gambino crime family.


"I'm the boss of my family. My wife and kids at home," he smiled as Gambino gangsters guided him into Brooklyn Federal Court for a pre-trial hearing. He arrived at the courtroom door at the same time as radio reporter Mary Gay Taylor, he grasped the door with one hand and graciously ushered her in with the other. "I was brought up to hold the door open for ladies," he said...

And the legend began...



Here are some of our key stories on the Dapper Don...


Michael DiLeonardo On the Gotti Reign
John Gotti Senior died around 10 months later, on June 10, 2002. "Mikie Scars" was filmed by the Feds attending the Dapper Don's wake.  Days after Gotti's burial, Michael and others were arrested based on Craig DePalma's sealed Grand Jury testimony....

First Post-Gotti Gambino Family Leadership Clarification
Squitieri's main man on the street was his nephew, Louis Filippelli. Filippelli was a soldier under Gambino capo Alphonse "Funzi" Sisca, who was Squietieri's brother-in-law and buddy, so following protocol Funzi had the ...

John Alite: Bookmaking "the Least of Doing Anything Wrong"
"60 Minutes Sports" on Showtime last night aired an interview with John Alite, marking the former gangster's first interview since finishing an eight-year prison sentence for racketeering two years ago. Alite had climbed high in ...

From Microkhan: Far be it from me to shed a tear for a murderous scoundrel whose various scams increased the price of everything in my adopted hometown. But did John Gotti get a raw deal when the Catholic Church denied ...
Gerald Shargel has on his website a video clip of him giving his closing statement in one of the John Gotti RICO trials in the late 1980s. (You need to click on "History," go along the timeline to 1990 and click on the "play video" ...

Click here. You'll hear such unbelievable nuggets as how in the early 1990s John Gotti and Jackie "Nose" D'Amico rode the Long Island Rail Road into the city two-three days a week to show up at no-work jobs in midtown.



Report: Gambinos Choose Sicilian Boss, End Gotti Era
For the first time since Gotti seized power in 1985 with the slaying of Boss Paul Castellano and his underboss, Tommy Bilotti, the family has chosen a member of the Sicilian faction -- the Neapolitan Gotti supposedly cared little ...

Justice Story: Standing Stakeout at John Gotti's ...
Feb 25, 2012
And that is why I found myself on a cold morning in January 1986 huddled with Daily News photographer Paul DeMaria in a car outside Gotti's modest split-level home on 85th Street in Howard Beach, Queens. We sat in our ...

Cosa Nostra News: If He Didn't Give You a Nickname, You Were Dead
This week's offering centers on Lewis Kasman, John Gotti's self-proclaimed "adopted son" who wore a wire against "dad" -- may have stolen millions from him, according to one source -- and helped destroy the upper echelon ...

Capeci on How Kasman Supposedly Saved the Gangland Writer's Life
Mar 18, 2011
Lewis Kasman -- remember him? -- says he saved my life so I shouldn't write bad things about him. For all I know, he may be right. So, in that spirit, I will take things down a notch and just report that the self-described "adopted ...