A federal magistrate judge yesterday denied bail for John A. Gotti Jr., the convicted crime family racketeer who has been charged with ordering three murder attempts, including targeting the founder of the Guardian Angels, Curtis Sliwa.

Judge Frank Maas shot down Gotti’s bid to post $10 million bail and spend his next trial under house confinement, citing Gotti as a “threat to public safety” and “a player in the Gambino crime family.”

“The bottom line is, anyone who is a member of the Gambino crime family presents a threat to public safety, even if that person is not out there wielding a weapon himself,” said Judge Maas to an audience of Gotti family members assembled in the Southern District court.

“I think they’re lies,” the mother of the defendant, Victoria Gotti, said following the judge’s ruling. “My son is innocent.”

Referring to the government’s use of mob turncoats as witnesses, Mrs. Gotti said, “I think it’s frightening that the government can use crybaby cowards that have gotten caught in their own nefarious deeds to send somebody else away for the rest of their life.”

Gotti, the 40-year-old son of the late Gambino boss John J. Gotti Sr., has not seen freedom since 1999, when he was convicted on racketeering charges and confined at the upstate Rye Brook Federal Prison. He was due to be released September 7, and is currently being held on pre-trial detention.

An assistant U.S. attorney for Manhattan, Michael McGovern, argued against Gotti’s release on the basis that he posed a threat to potential witnesses, including former Gambino members and Mr. Sliwa, who Mr. McGovern said “was nearly killed, shot at pointblank range, merely for speaking his mind.”

Mr. Sliwa, a radio personality, was allegedly targeted for referring on the air to the elder Gotti as “Public Enemy no. 1” and calling mobsters “thugs” and “lowlifes.” On June 19, 1992, four days before Gotti Sr. was sentenced to life in prison, Mr. Sliwa was shot several times while riding in a taxicab; he jumped out of the car window to escape his attackers. In April of that year, Mr. Sliwa was beaten by attackers wielding baseball bats.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman painted a different portrait of Gotti: a compassionate family man who has turned his back on crime and spent his prison sentence writing and illustrating a children’s book.

Gotti and another inmate “wrote a children’s book, the proceeds of which go to an abused children’s group in New Jersey,” said Mr. Lichtman to the judge. “It really doesn’t smack of a feared, chest-thumping Mafia capo.”

Afterwards, Mr. Lichtman said he would have been able to win bail for his client if the judge hadn’t decided to use his client’s last name against him. In addition, Mr. Lichtman accused federal prosecutors of telling the press about investigative diggings at a suspected Gambino graveyard in Queens on Monday so that the story would dominate headlines when Gotti appeared for his bail hearing.

“To get a front page story on the day of the bail hearing? I think Ray Charles could see that,” said Mr. Lichtman.

Mr. Sliwa, who attended the hearing flanked by three crimson-coated members of the Guardian Angels, hailed the bail denial as a temporary victory that increased his own chances of survival.

Mr. Sliwa said he was happy Gotti will remain behind bars, but said he was still vulnerable to murder attempts by young “free-lancers” looking to make a name for themselves.

“If you could put a whack on Curtis Sliwa, you could certainly have a lot of credibility in the Gambino crime family,” said Mr. Sliwa.

Mrs. Gotti said the judge’s ruling made her regret urging her son to accept a plea deal during his racketeering trial.

Gotti “took that plea because I begged him to six years ago,” said Mrs. Gotti. “I’m sorry that I did.”