Gotti Says Detective Helped in Killing of a Witness

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The New York Sun

At a secret session with the feds last year, John “Junior” Gotti fingered a former NYPD detective as a money-hungry rogue who gave up confidential information about a 1983 barroom murder — information that Gambino wiseguys used to kill a witness whose death has been officially ruled a suicide for more than two decades, Gang Land has learned.

Law enforcement sources said Gotti attributed his stunning account about the death by hanging of Vinny Cennamo to what he was told several years after the fact by mobster Angelo Ruggiero, a close ally of Gotti’s late father who died of cancer in 1989.

Police reports state that Cennamo, a friend of the murder victim, fingered Mark Caputo, a burly 6-foot-2-inch, 300-pound “bodyguard” whom the elder John Gotti had assigned to watch over his son, as the killer and said he left the bar with Junior.

According to what Junior told the feds, Ruggiero said that he and two other cronies of the elder Gotti used crucial background information supplied by the detective to whack Cennamo and make it appear to be a suicide, the sources said.

At the time of the conversation, Junior told the feds, Ruggiero was on the outs with the Dapper Don, who was boss of the crime family by then and had placed Ruggiero “on the shelf,” a designation that essentially stripped him of all his rights and responsibilities as a wiseguy.

In 1983,though, Ruggiero was a close cohort and fierce ally of the elder Gotti, and a man whom 19-year-old Junior often referred to as his “uncle.” It was to Uncle Angelo’s house that Junior went in the early hours of March 12, 1983, immediately after the fatal 2 a.m. stabbing of Danny Silva at the Silver Fox Bar in Ozone Park.

A day or two later, Junior told the feds, he drove Ruggiero to a meeting at the Sherwood Diner in Lawrence, L.I., where he saw Ruggiero give detective John Daly a $25,000 bribe as “insurance” that Junior, who had been at the bar but was not implicated in the slaying by any witnesses, would not become a focus of the murder probe, the sources said.

According to the sources, Junior said he watched from his car as Ruggiero gave Mr. Daly a brown paper bag that contained $25,000 during a brief meeting behind the diner. When the meeting broke up, Mr. Daly, who had interviewed Gotti about the brawl, acknowledged Gotti as he walked past the car and left the area.

Mr. Daly, who retired as a first-grade detective in 1991 after 34 years on the job, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. In 1993, when he was chief investigator for the Queens district attorney’s office, Mr. Daly denied taking a $10,000 bribe from the elder Gotti for an undisclosed favor when that allegation surfaced at a Queens corruption trial.

Turncoat mob associate Salvatore Reale, who was the source of the 1993 allegation, was also cited by Junior as a conduit of information for the wiseguys, the sources said.

“The allegation is absolutely false,” Mr. Daly said in 1993 when he was asked about the alleged payoff. “I was an honest cop before honest was there. I categorically deny it. It never occurred. I never received $10,000 from John Gotti or anyone else.”

Mr. Daly was not the lead detective in the stabbing case, but as a member of the 106th Precinct detective unit in Ozone Park, he questioned Junior about the murder as well as about the possibility that the deadly brawl had been a reaction to an attack against Gotti 10 days earlier, according to police reports obtained by Gang Land.

According to the reports, Cennamo, who is also identified as John Cennamo in the reports, was one of four patrons at the Silver Fox who had identified Caputo as the knife-wielding suspect who killed Silva. After Cennamo’s death, the other witnesses either left the state or recanted, and the prosecutors dropped the charges against Caputo in 1985.

Shortly after the slaying, Junior told the feds, he flew to Ft. Lauderdale to wait for “things to cool down,” driving back to New York later with his father, the sources said.

During Junior’s discussion with the feds — it was attended by his lawyers at the time, Jeffrey Lichtman and Marc Fernich, Assistant U.S Attorney Jennifer Rodgers, former prosecutors Joon Kim and Robert Buehler, and FBI agent Cindy Peil — Gotti denied any role in the slaying, sources said.

Even though the proffer session occurred before his first trial for the 1992 shooting of Curtis Sliwa, Gotti neither volunteered nor was asked any questions about the Sliwa assault or any other charges in the racketeering indictment, sources said.

One subject that did come up, sources said, was the 1986 shooting of Luchese underboss Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso, who was wounded by a team of Gambino associates who had been sent on their mission by Ruggiero. That assault was a focal point of the racketeering and murder trial of Mafia Cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa that was then set to start the following month.

It was while discussing that subject, the sources said, that Gotti made his only mention of Gambino capo Daniel Marino, telling the feds that Marino had “washed his hands” of the situation when he learned that his nephew, James Hydell, had taken part in the shooting, and that Casso was likely to kill Hydell in retaliation.

Contrary to what Gang Land reported previously, Gotti did not link Marino or soldier John “Johnny G” Gammarano to “numerous crimes” during his session with the feds. In fact, according to several authoritative law enforcement sources familiar with Junior’s meeting with the feds, he never mentioned Gammarano’s name during the session. Other sources, both in and out of law enforcement, disagree about whether Junior had agreed to implicate Johnny G in criminal activity at the session, but the fact is he never did, all the sources agree.

After the Casso shooting, Ruggiero was placed “on the shelf” for ordering the attack, Junior told the feds. Despite orders from his father to shun Ruggiero, Junior continued to speak to him, and was told by Ruggiero that he and mob associates Wilford “Willie Boy” Johnson and Joseph Watts had killed the witness to the Silva slaying, the sources said.

A few years later, according to the sources, when Junior and a few of his buddies were arrested for assaulting a few patrons at a Long Island nightclub — the charges were later dropped when the victims forgot who had hit them — the Gambinos passed more cash to Mr. Daly to keep Junior’s name from resurfacing in the Silver Fox case, Junior told the feds.

Neither the U.S. attorney’s office nor the FBI would comment about Junior’s remarks to the feds last year, or whether at this late date they can have any impact, even in the unlikely event they could be verified. Gotti’s former lawyers declined to comment.

Said Gotti’s current lawyer, Charles Carnesi: “He has acknowledged that there was a meeting, but he steadfastly maintains that he did not incriminate anyone in any criminal activity during the meeting, nor did he ever consider cooperating or testifying against anyone. Had it been his desire to make such a deal, his lawyers at the time would have made the deal.”

This column and other news of organized crime will be available today at ganglandnews.com.


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