Junior Gotti Was ‘Sick of This Life,’ Radio Host Says
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
John “Junior” Gotti said in 1998 that he was “sick of this life” and would plead guilty to criminal charges, a lawyer who co-hosts a radio show with Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa testified yesterday at Gotti’s mob trial.
The testimony by a veteran civil rights attorney, Ron Kuby, was intended by the defense to boost Gotti’s argument that he had rejected life in the Gambino crime family when he pleaded guilty in 1999 to racketeering charges. On that front, they got mixed results.
Mr. Kuby, who had represented a Gotti co-defendant, testified that Gotti said he “wanted to rejoin his family and be done with this,” but the lawyer could not be more specific.
“He told me he was sick of this life,” Mr. Kuby said. “He wanted this to be over.”
Outside court, Mr. Kuby said he never asked Gotti what he was referring to when he said he wanted out.
“I was functioning as a lawyer, not a priest,” Mr. Kuby said. “He did not elaborate. I did not ask.”
He said he assumed Gotti meant he was “tired of being a criminal, tired of being a defendant, tired of being in prison, tired of being away from family.”
In other testimony, one of Gotti’s relatives acknowledged his father “probably was” a crime family boss.
