A Stack of Evidence Hangs Over Gotti Trial

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.

The New York Sun

The feds plan to spice up the upcoming trial of John A. “Junior” Gotti for the attempted murder of Curtis Sliwa with evidence that the Dapper Don’s heir was involved in killings, drug dealing, murder plots, and even a plan to assault columnist Mike McAlary, Gang Land has learned.


A year before he allegedly orchestrated the June 19, 1992, shooting of Mr. Sliwa, Gotti told then-capo Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo that he wanted to “hurt” McAlary for “writing disparaging articles” about Junior, his late father, and “the Gambino family in general,” according to court documents obtained by Gang Land.


Junior confided his plans for McAlary to Mikey Scars in 1991 “while they were [near] the South Street Seaport” and the “New York Post’s office building,” where McAlary then worked, according to a letter prosecutors Michael McGovern, Joon Kim, and Victor Hou wrote to Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin.


“At the time,” the prosecutors wrote, “Gotti was ‘scoping’ the location to see whether it would be suitable for the contemplated assault on McAlary,” who won a Pulitzer for distinguished commentary as a Daily News columnist in 1998, six months before he died from colon cancer.


Gotti never moved on McAlary, but he did carry through on other mayhem, prosecutors claim. The following spring, a few months before the Junior Don allegedly ordered co-defendants Michael “Mikey Y” Yannotti and Joseph “Little Joe” D’Angelo to shoot Mr. Sliwa, Junior enlisted crew members to assault the radio talk-show host with baseball bats, the prosecutors wrote.


On June 23, 1992, the day the elder John Gotti – the Dapper Don – was sentenced to life in prison for racketeering and murder in Brooklyn, Junior “incited a riot” outside the courthouse, according to the prosecutors’ letter, which has not been publicly filed.


“Gotti was outside the courthouse that day, using a handheld radio to direct the criminal activities of his associates,” the prosecutors wrote, adding that Gotti’s goons stormed the courthouse and vandalized cars in a “melee that] resulted in injuries to several police officers.”


The prosecution also plans to include evidence that Gotti “took credit” for the 1992 slaying of a husband and wife team that had been marked for death by the Bonanno and Gambino clans for brazen armed robberies of family social clubs.


In meetings with Bonanno boss Joseph Massino and Salvatore Vitale – both now mob defectors – Gotti “proudly” stated, “We took care of it,” according to the prosecutors.


In addition to two murder conspiracy charges in the indictment, the prosecutors have asked Judge Scheindlin to allow them to introduce evidence that Gotti was involved in murder plots against eight other wiseguys and mob associates.


Most of the alleged plots involved little more than angry words. But a 1993 conspiracy to murder capo Daniel Marino and soldier John Gammarano was planned in detail. The plan called for another capo to bring the duo to a Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, apartment that had been acquired by Mikey Scars, according to the prosecutors.


Gotti had two armed soldiers – Charles Carneglia and Thomas “Tommy Sneakers” Cacciopoli – hidden in a bedroom ready to barge out and blow them away when Gotti gave the signal, the prosecutors wrote.


The would-be shooters even brought along two body bags to be used for the take out. The plan went awry, the prosecutors wrote, when the targeted mobsters arrived with another soldier and wealthy Gambino associate Joe Watts, “having traveled to the location in a stretch limousine driven by Watts’s driver.”


After questioning Marino about not sending enough “construction industry extortion proceeds” to him – the pretext for the meeting – Gotti dismissed Marino, Gammarano, and the other soldier.


He then chastised Watts for bringing so many people to the sit-down, “observing that Watts had made it impossible for Gotti” to kill the two intended victims without also killing the soldier and “Watts’s limousine driver,” the prosecutors wrote.


The planned hits are among 31 “uncharged crimes” that prosecutors contend are “intrinsic evidence” that the Gambino crime family is a racketeering enterprise and that Gotti and the others, including associate Louis “Louie Black” Mariani, were members of the enterprise from the mid-1980s through 2004.


The long list of crimes – including witness tampering, robberies, burglaries, shootings, assaults, bank jobs, extortions, beatings, gambling, weapons possession, and money laundering – is likely to grow, according to the prosecution letter.


In a footnote, prosecutors said they are still “marshaling the evidence” and may seek to introduce “additional uncharged acts.” Their target for concluding the long process is July 18. Trial is scheduled for August 8.


Noting that the prosecution’s uncharged crimes “encompass virtually every major crime in the United States Code,” Gotti’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman said introducing so many uncharged crimes would be “highly prejudicial” and make it impossible for his client to receive a fair trial.


The uncharged crimes “dwarf the actual charges” and are a government ploy “to bury Mr. Gotti in an avalanche of extraneous acts, smearing him as an evil man generally deserving punishment,” Mr. Lichtman said in a reply letter to the judge.


Mr. Lichtman, who won a ruling from Judge Scheindlin that precludes the government from using taped conversations between Gotti and attorney Richard Rehbock at trial, noted that “Gotti has already admitted – and will continue to admit at trial – the existence, means, and methods of the charged enterprise,” namely the Gambino crime family.


Mr. Lichtman dismissed the uncharged crimes as “idle talk that never ripened into crimes” and “random musings” that should not be placed before a jury, even under the most liberal pro-government Supreme Court rulings involving the racketeering statutes.


***


The only thing worse than a sore loser is a sore winner who trashes his colleagues as well as his adversaries.


Take Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Andres, for example.


Louis Restivo, 70, is a longtime Bonanno gangster. If Mr. Andres hadn’t offered him a sweet 10-year plea bargain early this year when it was in his interest to resolve the case without a lengthy trial, Restivo would most likely have been convicted of murder and assured of dying in federal prison.


But the aging, ailing Restivo, who had been confined under strict house arrest provisions, took the deal and agreed not to seek an adjournment of his sentencing date. Mr. Andres agreed to allow him to undergo delicate spinal surgery.


After surviving the risky surgery, Restivo submitted a letter from his surgeon and asked for permission to walk “around the block” in Rego Park, Queens, between 5 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. each day as “part of the rehabilitation and recovery process” until he begins his sentence next month. He noted that the federal pre-trial service officer had approved the request.


No way, Mr. Andres replied. Restivo had “no legal basis … to roam the streets,” with or without a cane, “even for an hour a day,” Mr. Andres wrote, trashing the PTS officer who reviewed the files and okayed the request as “not aware of the facts” of the case.


The New York Sun

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