Ed Scarpo's Blog, page 42

Why I Refuse to Purchase John Junior's Ebook

John A. Gotti's first literary effort is for sale now.Expanded, revised, slightly: I nearly hit the purchase button, but I realized long ago that I simply buy too many ebooks and I have spent more money on Amazon than I'd ever care to admit.

So I downloaded the sample first for In the Shadow of My Father, the new ebook available tonight on Amazon.com.

As I skimmed Peter Lance's seemingly endless Forward, most of which is an ongoing advertisement for his terrorism books, I read something that nearly blew my mind. I read it again to make sure I had read what I actually thought I had read.

No, I thought. It can't be. Charles Carnesi can't be bragging about putting a journalist on the stand to get her to reveal her sources....

But that is precisely what he does.
"Some agent intimately involved in the case must have had a relationship with a New York Post reporter... she starts writing a series of articles with revelations she alleges are coming from a law enforcement source."
[The excerpts to Gotti's ebook, of course, were published in the New York Daily News. Do you even wonder why?]
This is the USA and we have free speech in this country, Mr. Carnesi.
So in the Forward -- this is all in Lance's endless Forward, recall -- we read part of a story headlined: “Junior Had A ‘Singing’ Tryout—Turned Canary In Futile Bid to Stay Out of Prosecutor’s Cage.”
Here I'm going to provide full quotes from the top part of the story -- not cherry pick the sentences I want you to read (versus the ones I don't)....

John “Junior” Gotti broke omerta in a failed bid to win his freedom – a shocking decision his “Dapper Don” dad would have considered the ultimate betrayal. 

The younger Gotti disregarded the Mafia oath of silence and ratted out members of the Gambino crime family during a daylong proffer session with federal prosecutors in the spring of 2005, sources familiar with the meeting told The Post. 

The mob scion fessed up to a host of crimes and fingered numerous cohorts for mob-related activity in the hopes of getting out from under racketeering charges that threaten to put him behind bars for 30 years and force him to forfeit $25 million. 

Sources said Gotti did not cop to any of the crimes he’s currently charged with – most notably the high-profile kidnapping of radio host Curtis Sliwa. 

Gotti admitted to his long-suspected role in the stabbing of Danny Silva, 24, during a brawl at the Silver Fox Bar in Ozone Park in March 1983, a source familiar with the meeting said. 

Gotti admitted he was among a group of men who fought with Silva and that he wielded a knife – but said he suffered serious puncture wounds and acted in self-defense. 

His lawyer, Charles Carnesi, said Gotti had never admitted to personally stabbing Silva and said he would neither confirm nor deny that the proffer session took place. 

Gotti’s bid to become a turncoat fell through after he refused to give the feds the full story – he agreed only to provide incriminating information about certain cohorts but insisted on protecting others, sources said. 

Instead, Gotti went on trial for racketeering in August 2005, mounting a ferocious defense in which defense lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman conceded Gotti had run the Gambino crime family for his father – but that he left the mob in 1999....

I am so sorry that this gave Junior Gotti problems with one of the four RICO trials the poor guy had to face, none of which he won, I might add. A trial ending in a mistrial -- is, well, a mistrial... Maybe if he was not the boss of a crime family he wouldn't have been arrested and put on trial so many times, which makes me wonder: Why in God's name did he write this book. How many AUAs are going to be reading this thing all night? Why couldn't he just let go of this bullshit if he wants to be free and clear? Is his hatred of John Alite so pure, so complete that he puts himself at risk for a fifth prosecution? That has to be the case. Then, you have to wonder why.

(And by the way her story about the Feds delivering subpoenas was not news to the New York Mafia, John's target audience at that time didn't need to read the newspaper to learn what the Feds said when the gangsters were handed the subpoenas. No, sir, they didn't need to read it because they heard it from the agents themselves when those slips of papers where handed to them by the FBI agents.... Mr. Carnesi is sort of weirdly providing confirmation for what the reporter wrote, sort of highlighting that her reporting was balls-on accurate, only he doesn't seem to realize or care about that.)

And (un)surprisingly, Carnesi didn't quote the article she wrote the next month in which she names those guys that Junior ratted on. Perhaps because that story is based on a story written by Jerry Capeci on Gangland News. Carnesi enlists Capeci as a sort of ally later on in Lance's endless Forward -- a brother in arms, so to speak.

SQUEAL ‘N’ DEAL ‘JUNIOR’ IS A RAT – FINGERED FATHER’S COHORTS: REPORT

In a move that his father would have considered the ultimate betrayal, John “Junior” Gotti ratted out three of his dad’s former cohorts when he secretly met with the feds in a failed bid to win his freedom, according to a new report. 

Gotti broke the mob oath of omerta in January 2005 by fingering Gambino capo Daniel Marino, soldier John “Johnny G” Gammarano and longtime mob associate Joseph “Joe the German” Watts, the online column Gang Land News reported yesterday. 

The three – who are all currently on the street following various stints behind bars – were later hit with grand-jury subpoenas in a sweeping probe of the Gambino crime family last spring, sources told The Post before a gag order was issued last month....

So next we read: “So we go into court and we challenge Kati Cornell Smith to disclose the source of the leaks, believing that they came from Ted Otto. She invokes the New York Shield Law which protects reporters’ sources. But when asked if she does have a ‘law enforcement source,’ she affirms under oath that her story is truthful in that regard."

I am sorry but I don't get the point of this entire part of the argument. So she affirms under oath that her story is truthful... Ah, I get it now: " truthful in that regard." Meaning perhaps untruthful in some other unidentified regard? Thats called a lot of things: innuendo. Other words: insinuation, suggestion, intimation, implication, hint, overtone, undertone,allusion....

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. We're not in a trial, Mr. Carnesi. We are in court, though -- the court of public opinion.
He's smearing a reporter for writing a series of exclusive articles that were not favorable to his client but were accurate in at least one regard, according to Carnesi. He's trying to discredit her because Junior doesn't like being called a rat, doesn't want it known that he ratted out three guys -- that we know of.... I am practicing some innuendo myself. You catch it? There is more of it to come.
But first a quick note about that Shield Law (yes, I meet the requirement, friends and confidential sources. I also tend to misplace my notes and any tape recordings I may have made. Ooops, what can I say.....a bad habit of mine....And I forget things like names and stuff....):

New York state courts recognize a qualified "reporter's privilege" based on the U.S. Constitution and the New York Constitution. The precise scope of these protections is uncertain. New York state courts do not recognize any common law privilege for newsgatherers. 

Federal courts in the 2nd Circuit Court, which encompasses New York, recognize a qualified reporter's privilege based on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the common law. The level of protection depends on whether you obtained the information in question in exchange for a promise of confidentiality. 

The Privacy Protection Act may protect you against the search and/or seizure, in connection with a criminal investigation or prosecution, of materials you possess in connection with a purpose to disseminate to the public a newspaper, book, broadcast, or other similar form of public communication. This federal statutory protection applies regardless of the state in which you live.

The First Amendment to the Constitution "prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights."

Now, onward to Mr. Gotti. You make a salient point regarding the year 1940. On the October day after the day your father was born, Italy invaded Greece. But in the scheme of things does it really matter that Italy invaded Greece in 1940? As a man of Italian (and German) blood, I daresay WWII is not something we Italians should look back on with great pride.

I'd wager that not many people in general probably cared a whole lot about Italy invading Greece in 1940.... not when only one year earlier  Nazi Germany invaded Poland, igniting World War II.

The Greeks were likely even less concerned than others of the time period, I'd add. The whole invasion was Il Duce's greatest blunder -- and that says a lot. He was a man who tended to blunder.

The Greeks succeeded in hurling the Italian forces back into Albania [Italy had invaded Albania earlier. Albania!! The ironies simply abound!] So, the Greeks pushed Il Duce's forces back into... Albania and they did this in about five minutes. No, actually it took about a week. Then the Axis power spent  three months fighting for its very life against the fearsome Greek offensive. At the same time, about half the Italian fleet had been destroyed by a British carrier-based attack. Mussolini was utterly humiliated.

As the History website notes: "Mussolini surprised everyone with this move against Greece; even his ally, Adolf Hitler, was caught off-guard, especially since the Duce had led Hitler to believe he had no such intention. Hitler denounced the move as a major strategic blunder. According to Hitler, Mussolini should have concentrated on North Africa, continuing the advance into Egypt. Even Mussolini's own chief of army staff found out about the invasion only after the fact. But despite being warned off an invasion of Greece by his own generals, despite the lack of preparedness on the part of his military, despite that it would mean getting bogged down in a mountainous country during the rainy season against an army willing to fight tooth and nail to defend its autonomy, Mussolini moved ahead out of sheer hubris..."


Hubris...excessive pride or self-confidence.synonyms: arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, hauteur, pride, self-importance, egotism,pomposity, superciliousness, superiority;(in Greek tragedy) excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.

I also want to mention one final part I read in the sample (or was it the excerpt?) that convinced me not to buy the book.
John describes how and why he got into "The Life." I am quoting from that Forward (previously, I wrote my take on it, but as is often the case, you can't always beat the writer's original description). 

Meanwhile, this book is full of untold revelations in Junior’s personal story. [But are these "untold revelations" at all accurate? By this I mean, true to the facts -- accurate. Or are they an interpretation that paints them in the best picture humanly possible?]. 

“This Life was not the path I had originally chosen,” he told me. “I graduated from New York Military Academy on June 5th, 1982. I was looking to go into a ROTC compatible college. I needed two more years of ROTC and that would qualify me as a Second Lieutenant in the Army. That was where I wanted to go. That was the carrier choice I had made. 

“But fate had a different life in store for me. A couple of weeks into my 19th year I was involved in a bar fight. There were some kids there from Ozone Park, high on Angel Dust. We were from Howard Beach. One of my friends dated a girl who hung out there. One thing led to another and this kid kept shoving into me. We got into a fight, and I hit him. Pretty soon it erupted into a free-for-all. I got stabbed.

Several other guys got stabbed and one poor kid died from his wounds. That changed my life forever. To keep an eye on him, John Jr. says his father “remanded me to house arrest” at the Bergin Club. 

I'll buy Gotti's Rules instead of this one.

First off, I never met Junior -- in 1982. But later on in the decade I still didn't meet him but I did see him on several occasions with his entourage. How do I know it was him? Because everyone in the goddamn bar had told me who the big guy was, the one surrounded by women and sychophants, pouring champagne delivered to him steeped in an ice bucket. Was I certain it was him? No, honestly I didn't want to go up to him and ask. I had heard plenty of stories and he didn't seem to be much of a social animal.

However, I will say that I find the "kid kept shoving into me" part impossible to believed. Amazing how he notes his own injury before letting on: "Several other guys got stabbed and one poor kid died from his wounds."

The poor kid who died didn't even warrant his own sentence in Gotti's version. By the way: Does anyone not know the real story behind how this kid died? And how, shortly thereafter, a witness was murdered? They kind of forced him to commit suicide. I kid you not.
Another excerpt -- and please note an NYPD detective is among the sources here:
Cops: Witness fingered Junior Gotti and wound up dead

The NYPD didn't question John A. (Junior) Gotti in a barroom slaying despite an identification from a witness who was soon found hanging from a tree, two cops testified Thursday.

Within hours of the March 1983 slaying in the Silver Fox, witness John Cennamo was in Jamaica Hospital shouting at police that Gotti fatally stabbed Daniel Silva, retired Detective James McKinley testified.

"We all know who did it!" Cennamo shouted after McKinley arrived at the hospital. "Johnny Boy Gotti!"

McKinley later interviewed Cennamo at the 106th Precinct stationhouse, where he said he saw Gotti and three other knife-wielding men attack Silva.

Prosecutor Jay Trezevant asked if anyone ever attempted to ask Junior about the killing.

"No," McKinley replied.

An earlier witness in Gotti's racketeering trial testified that Junior's notorious father, John Gotti Sr., shut down the murder probe with a $10,000 bribe to an NYPD detective.

Under cross-examination, McKinley acknowledged arresting Gotti crony Mark Caputo for the Silva murder - although the case later fell apart. Fourteen months after the killing, Cennamo, 22, was found dead - a white sweater wrapped around his neck - from a low-hanging tree, prosecution witness Joseph Stillitano said.

The retired cop said the death had the look of a homicide, since the victim was "hanging too low." Cennamo's knees were almost touching the ground behind the Linden Blvd., Queens, laundermat, he recalled.

Another detective overruled Stillitano, calling it a suicide.

Prosecutors claimed Gotti was responsible for the Cennamo death, saying he bragged about the killing.

Meanwhile, Gotti's defense team argued he was the target of an overzealousFBI, and subpoenaed the personnel and discipline records of FBI Special Agent Theodore Otto.

Prosecutors filed paperwork to block the subpoena, saying Otto's file had nothing to do with the murder charges against Gotti.

Here are the two takeaways:

 John Gotti Sr., shut down the murder probe with a $10,000 bribe to an NYPD detective.
Fourteen months after the killing, [the witness against Gotti, John] Cennamo, 22, was found dead - a white sweater wrapped around his neck - from a low-hanging tree, prosecution witness Joseph Stillitano said.
Everyone has a right to author their memoirs -- or a book of any kind. But I don't have to buy it. I certainly don't need to read this book to know that it is exactly what Mr. Lance said it is not. To use his words: This is indeed an "apologia told by an ex-wiseguy who cut a deal with the Feds" -- only the deal blew up somehow, and Junior will do anything to extricate himself from the proffer session in which he gave up three older mobsters who helped put untold riches into the Gotti pocket.

Propaganda is something John Gotti Jr should know about. He seems to be a WWII buff. The Nazis knew quite a bit about practicing the art. That sly fox Joseph Goebbels even managed to evoke the prophetic words of Nostradamus to support the lost German cause...
Propaganda
information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view."he was charged with distributing enemy propaganda"synonyms: information, promotion, advertising, publicity, spin; 
Propaganda is not truth. It is creating arguments to sway people to think what you want them to think. It is, in its worst form, a kind of brainwashing.
So I am not even going to read this book. I'm not going to debate anyone about this decision in the comments below, either. 
Buy the book if you want. At least he's not running a crime family and committing crimes.... I really hope this doesn't come back to bite him on the ass. No on should be penalized for exercising their right to free speech. But I bet Joe Bonanno had no idea that the book he was writing would lead to the Commission Case, which put away all the old-school Cosa Nostra bosses, except for Gotti's father -- who many said destroyed whatever was left following the Commission Case.
Before I get off my computer for today, I want to ask a question... How many of you are familiar with what happened to Robin Lynn Vitulli?
She was killed in 1985 while dating Junior's uncle Vincent, a Gambino soldier and the youngest brother of John Gotti Senior. The story has been told that she slapped Peter Gotti in the face inside a disco at the Kennedy Inn, a now-defunct Queens motel, and that Peter then ordered her to be killed.
This was in 1985.... Remember, Gotti Senior was on the street; this was the summer before he launched his coup against Paul Castellano.

Robin Lynn Vitulli's body was discovered in a pile of trash, her legs sticking out. She was strangled to death.

"At least one witness has told probers that members of Gotti’s crew led waitress Robin Lynn Vitulli out of a Queens disco the night of her murder and put her into a white van, according to a police source," the Post reported.

This came out during Alite's testimony in the fourth trial. We go to the report: Gotti trial stirs daughter's rage over slain mom - NY Daily News: "[Alite] testified that Vincent Gotti had strangled a woman in a Queens motel.... The testimony ignited a courtroom shouting match between Alite and his former best man.

"I'll kill you," Gotti mouthed silently at Alite as the star witness testified in Manhattan Federal Court.

"You got something to say to me?" Alite barked as he left the witness stand.

"You fag!" Gotti screamed back. "Did I kill little girls? You're a punk. You're a dog. You're a dog. You always were a dog your whole life, you punk dog."

Gotti's attorney tried to blame the slaying on Alite, who laughed the charge off."
I know what Alite tried to tell the reporter in the story that came out a couple of days ago. 
Well, I don't actually know -- I shouldn't say that. But I think I know what Alite said, and the reporter revised....
Of course, it's a bad-for-Gotti story, so guess who ran it: Ex-mobster on ‘spoiled brat’ Junior Gotti | New York Post: "John “Junior” Gotti was a “self-mutilating” stunad with no street cred, according to his former best friend and mob turncoat John Alite. 
“He’s like Kim Jong-un — a spoiled brat that took advantage of guys around us by his dad’s authority,” the former Gambino crime-family enforcer seethed to The Post. 
“Ever since we were kids, he’s self-mutilating himself, burning himself with cigars,” Alite said in his first interview before a book by George Anastasia — “Gotti’s Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia” (Dey St. Books) — hits shelves on Jan. 27. “He would play drinking games with other guys, and part of these drinking games was if you lose, you gotta burn your hands with cigars,” he continued. 
“These are his ideas."

That is an odd thing to say about someone, isn't it? A self-mutilator...
One of my sources, based in Queens and with another crime family, said something strange to me a while back when John Junior was stabbed that called to mind something similar to that statement. Anyone recall that incident?
Cosa Nostra News: “Junior” Gotti Stabbed Outside Syosset CVS: "Former Gambino crime family boss John A. Gotti Jr. says he was stabbed in the stomach while trying to break up a fight outside a Long Island drugstore, a law enforcement source told the Daily News. [It happens to be the only CVS on Long Island without working surveillance cameras onsite at the time, need I even bother to add?]

"Gotti, the son of late “Dapper Don” John Gotti, told Syosset Hospital staff he took a knife to the gut on Sunday night while trying to stop two strangers from fighting in the parking lot of the CVS across from the Long Island Rail Road station in Syosset. The mob scion then made his own way to the hospital, where staffers called police because of the nature of the wound, another source said. "

Powerful Genovese Mobster in the Feds' Crosshairs

Victor Colletti
COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE: Alleged Genovese crime family acting capo Victor Colletti was indicted in 2005 for running a massive Queens-based gambling operation. He was poised to serve his first stretch behind prison bars at the age of 74. He won on appeal, however, and never served a day.
The state had gone after Colletti, filing a 24-count enterprise corruption indictment in the Supreme Court in Queens County. They missed.

Now the Feds are sizing him up for a prison cell.

Cosa Nostra News has learned that federal agents recently seized computers and records from the offices of Lindy's car service. In addition, drivers who worked for the company have been subpoenaed, according to a source familiar with the events and those involved who spoke with Cosa Nostra News on condition of anonymity.
.





Colletti, a rich and powerful Genovese crime family mobster who hails from Middle Village, Queens, is known for keeping the lowest of profiles. Officially a soldier, he has been serving as an acting capo,  reportedly a promotion he didn't want out of concern it would raise his profile among law enforcement officials.

Lindy's is one of a several car services owned by JT Enterprises, which is secretly owned by Colletti, according to the source. Colletti basically owns the car service industry in New York City and on Long Island for the Genovese crime family.

We called Lindy's car service, located in Amityville, Long Island, for comment regarding news that the FBI had seized computers and office records and were abruptly told by the woman who answered: "The manager will have to call you back."

We provided our name and phone number and asked for the manager's name and were told "they will have to call you back."

Despite Colletti's wide-ranging interests, the Feds are focusing on JT Enterprises, according to our source. Medicaid fraud and extortion are among the chief charges. On its website, Lindy's bills itself as "the largest Medicaid transportation provider for Suffolk County," with a "computerized scheduling system" designed to "efficiently handle the scheduling of these calls."

"If you never heard of him, it’s because he wanted it that way," Jerry Capeci wrote of Colletti on his Gangland News website.

Another car-service outfit linked to Colletti, VJT Enterprises, in Middle Village, Queens, is not known to be under investigation. This company (the V stands for "Victor") notes on its website that it deploys a fleet of "Multi-Purpose Taxi transports" that can accommodate "people that are in wheelchairs or scooters. These specialty taxis allow people that aren't physically well, are reliant on medical equipment, to get around."

Rackets that bilk Medicaid are a profitable niche for Mafiosi and other crime rings. As The Economist reported: "Medicaid doles out $415 billion a year; Medicare (a federal scheme for the elderly), nearly $600 billion. Total health spending in America is a massive $2.7 trillion, or 17% of GDP... Andrew Hackbarth of the RAND Corporation, estimated that fraud (and the extra rules and inspections required to fight it) added as much as $98 billion, or roughly 10%, to annual Medicare and Medicaid spending—and up to $272 billion across the entire health system."

Colletti's story is that of an old-school gangster who successfully avoided the limelight; for this, he has been lavished with praise by his criminal cohorts, as well as lushly rewarded.

"If you looked at [Colletti], you'd never know it," we were told. "He goes to church with his grandchildren every Sunday, lives in a modest house, he sweeps the sidewalk in front of his house--but he's got mega-fucking juice, even for a soldier. He's got more power than most capos."

Colletti is serving as acting capo for Anthony "Tough Tony" Federici, a fellow Queens resident who allegedly is part of a ruling panel overseeing the Genovese clan, considered the richest and most powerful crime family in the nation. Federici is the family's acting underboss. Anthony "Rom" Romanella was Federici's first acting capo.

Our source said he'd even heard Colletti referred to as consiglieri of the Genovese family, which "sounds like a good fit," but cautioned us he couldn't confirm it. "That family, as you know, is the Ivy League of the mob, and very secretive."

Nevertheless, whatever his title, Colletti "for years had special status, reporting directly to the administration. He is very well-liked and very well-aligned with the top members of all five crime families. They all respect him because he has so much power but remains so low key. He doesn't travel with many people and avoids the limelight at all costs."

Capeci noted that "this senior mob citizen had the mob juice to win a lucrative Forest Hills car service from the Bonanno crime family at a sitdown during the 12-year reign of that family’s then-powerful boss Joseph Massino.
Massino gave the decision for a Queens
car service to Colletti.
"Sources say Massino himself told FBI agents about the dispute over the car service between the two families and his decision for the Genovese gangster..."
In addition to his car-service business, Colletti also is said to have major clout in the garment district; in addition he reportedly controls a stagehands union for Broadway theaters and other major venues.

And Colletti still holds a majority share in the Genovese-Bonanno bookmaking operation busted back in 2005. Colletti himself has since relocated it to Costa Rica to avoid further scrutiny by U.S. law enforcement.

Colletti has ties that harken way back in the Mafia. His maternal uncle was Charlies "Chaloots" Gagliodotto, a legendary hit man for the Genovese crime family found strangled to death in August 1969, supposedly payback doled out by members of Frank Tuminaro's family. Chaloots, in the summer of that year, had gone off the deep end, going on a vicious killing spree that included the brutal murders of Frank Tuminaro and Frank Gangi Sr (father of Frank Gangi Jr., with whom we are writing an ebook focused on his association with Thomas "Tommy Karate" Pitera.)

Chaloots had taken Colletti under his wing. "He traveled in the shadows," our source said of Chaloots, adding that "Colletti has  a lot of work under his belt."

Colletti is known to be a smoother operator, a man who gets things done quietly.

"There's always little fanfare; a guy will just disappear. [Colletti's] a sharp businessman. He usually gets the decision before it even goes to a sitdown."

Relatively unknown to the public at large -- "If you never heard of him, it’s because he wanted it that way," Jerry Capeci wrote of Colletti on his Gangland News website -- Colletti was poised to serve up to three years in prison fοr running a huge bookmaking operation that brought in several million dollars a year.

Of the bookmaking operation, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said it involved illegal wages involving horse racing, numbers and college and professional sports contests, including bets on the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship tournament.

The 2005 indictment charged Colletti and 16 other individuals with operating a gambling ring out of at least three Queens bars, including Club House Sports Bar in Maspeth and First German Sports Club and Tee-Dee’s Tavern, both in Ridgewood. Also involved were locations in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Westchester County.

The case was unique, according to DA Brown because it is the first time that two organized crime families were prosecuted for working in cooperation in an illegal gambling enterprise.

Colletti was the only one out of the 17 indicted in 2008 to refuse to cop a plea. He took the case to a courtroom, where he was found guilty following a cantankerous 10-day jury trial.

Colletti was sentenced tο one to three years іn prison (he could've been sentenced to up to 25 years, but his age was a consideration in the sentencing guidelines), but in 2010 he won on appeal. The Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn threw out the conviction because, as Capeci described it: "Queens prosecutors failed to properly identify the name of the bookmaking operation that he was charged with heading in the five year old indictment."
Sarita Kedia won Colletti's appeal in 2010.
Attorney Sarita Kedia, former acolyte to lauded defense attorney Gerald Shargel, made the appeal that resulted in the tossing of Colletti’s conviction.

Alite: Bookmaking "the Least of Doing Anything Wrong"

Who ratted on Alite in the first place?
In early March 2014, "60 Minutes Sports" on Showtime 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.

I'm rerunning it in light of the books soon to debut, making this an interesting month for mob watchers. John Gotti Jr will have a lot to say about Alite in his book, and we're sure Alite will say stuff about a lot of things. We really have not heard much from him. (I have heard quite a bit about Alite from former criminal cohorts of his and Junior's and will be writing my own series of articles about the two Johns. I'll just say here I wonder why the New York tabloids are so interested in protecting the Gotti name; l  also don't think the public knows how powerful Alite was in the New York Gambino family. Ronnie "One-Arm" Truccio, Alite's partner mentioned below, is another figure we'll be looking at.)



Alite had climbed high in the mob before deciding to flip for the feds and become their "star witness" against John Gotti Junior in a 2009 trial that ended with a hung jury.
Alite had been keeping a low profile since getting out of prison.
"60 Minutes" focused Alite's interview on sports betting, a hot political issue in New Jersey, but also included some of the highlights of his career on the street, limiting its scope to the turncoat's doings in the New York area, where he worked under the Gottis. But he also was quite active in the criminal underworld in Tampa, Fla., working under fellow New Yorker Ronald "Ronnie One Arm" Trucchio.





The truth is, there was not much meat on the program, but interesting details. At the end of this story we fill in some of the gaps that 60 minutes overlooked.

Alite said becoming a bookie was one of his first rackets; he'd learned all about the sports-betting business from family members with whom he lived in the same house in Woodhaven, Queens.
"I was good at it and I became very good at it, and I became a professor of bookmaking," Alite told correspondent Jack Ford.

In terms of how much he earned, Alite ducked the question, answering that if he lost $325,000 in one weekend, he never panicked because he knew he'd earn it all back.
"Twenty-two years, I never lost a dime," he said, noting that the gamblers always lost, insinuating that even if they would win, they'd eventually give it back one bet at a time. That's why he became a bookmaker.
"I know you can't win. At the end of the day I wanted to put money in my pocket," he said. "I became the house. The house doesn't lose."
Discussing his time in New York working as a Gambino operative for John Gotti Senior, Alite seemed unable to say the man's name, referring to him as "Senior." And Gotti Junior never came up once during the interview.
"When Senior Called... You Took Care of It"Asked about his days as a Mafia associate, Alite said: "I was taking the orders as far as who to hurt, who to kill, who to put in the hospital. When Senior called, you went, no excuses, you took care of it."
Asked how he felt when he got his first order to kill, Alite said, "I wanted the order."
"I wanted to be completely in and trusted, and to believe that he liked me that much, that he trusted me to do anything for him."
Sports betting is a major cash cow for mobsters, and in fact it's not even considered a crime among mobsters.
"To us, this is the least of doing anything wrong," he said. "If you're gonna get arrested for bookmaking, they're gonna laugh at it." He said usually a little jail time or a ticket were the most you'd get for taking bets.
"The other stuff you're gonna go to prison for."
Asked to describe his usual customers, Alite rattled off a list that included "Detectives, police officers, businessmen, Wall Street guys, store owners, school teachers..." He added that he personally knew members of law enforcement who "ran their own businesses... Sometimes they'd call in their action to us."
Alite, walking the streets of Woodhaven with Ford, stood in front of the house he grew up in, with other extended family members. "We lived on the middle floor," he said.
Alite became successful enough as a bookmaker that he eventually eyed expansion. He formed his own crew in 1983, at age 20, and added drug dealing and hijacking trucks from JFK to his skill set.
"I was a successful businessman," Alite said, when asked what he thought of himself while committing the various crimes that enabled his highflying lifestyle, which eventually expanded to include the ultimate crime: murder.
In those days in the mid-1980s, he used a local tavern, Neirs, which is described as one of the oldest such establishments in Queens, New York. Many scenes for the film GoodFellas were shot there. It was here where Alite (and a couple of his guys) sat at a back table and conducted business, settling up debts, doling out payments while collecting money from losers (there was always much more of the latter, he said).
Alite's criminal life came to an end on Jan. 16, 2008, when he signed a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. It was kept secret, however, until December of that year, "its release triggered by another mob trial set for January in New York," according to the Tampa Bay Times. 
Two Murders, 4 Murder Conspiracies, 8 Shootings, 2 Attempted ShootingsAs part of the agreement, Alite admitted involvement in two murders, four murder conspiracies, at least eight shootings and two attempted shootings — including one in which the intended victim was his former roommate at the University of Tampa. He acknowledged his role as a top associate in the Gambino crime family and specifically admitted to participating in the murder of George Grosso on Dec. 20, 1998, and in the murder of Bruce John Gotterup on Nov. 20, 1991. Prosecutors said Alite also admitted to participating in four murder conspiracies, including conspiracy in 1990 to kill Louis DiBono.
Alite also acknowledged participation in armed home invasions and armed robberies in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida, the government said.
Alite figured prominently in the trial of Ronald "Ronnie One Arm" Trucchio and three co-defendants found guilty of conspiracy and racketeering by a federal jury in Tampa in 2006. Alite and Trucchio, a captain in the Gambino crime family, were business partners, federal prosecutors said.
At the time, prosecutors accused Alite of controlling illegal businesses, illegal gambling, extortion, drug trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping and murder.They used Prestige Valet, a Tampa company, to infiltrate the local valet business.
U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday granted the defense motion to transfer Gotti's federal racketeering and murder charges from Tampa to New York, where Gotti's attorneys argued the bulk of the alleged activity took place.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Trezevant has said that Alite and Gotti knew each other from Queens, N.Y. Gotti signed as a witness on Alite's marriage licence in 1989, records show.
During a court hearing in Tampa Trezevant disclosed that Alite went to Gotti some time in 1989 with an idea to expand the Gambino crime family's reach into Tampa through the valet parking business. While he honeymooned in Hawaii, Alite had reconnected with his UT roommate, and learned of the roommate's booming valet operation, Trezevant said.
"Timmy Donovan [the roommate] is fascinated by this whole John Gotti organized crime thing," Trezevant said in court. "John Alite is interested in the fact that Timmy Donovan is a successful valet parking businessman in Tampa making a bunch of money for a young guy. And it's a cash-based business."
Donovan testified as a government witness during the 2006 Trucchio trial. At the time, he said he helped Alite set up his own valet business in New Jersey, though they were never partners. When Alite ran into money problems, he came to Donovan. But Donovan testified that he didn't have the $10,000 Alite wanted.
Federal prosecutors said Alite also admitted to extortion in the valet parking businesses and the businesses of bar and lounge security as well as trafficking in cocaine.

Coming Soon: A Cosa Nostra News Exclusive

What is this.... Nothing really, just a weird-looking
picture that doesn't give away anything about the
story I've been working on for the past eight hours.
UPDATE: Well, we didn't make our self-imposed deadline; we need to formally contact someone. We doubt they'll comment, but we need to provide them with an opportunity. 

We've been working on this one for two days and hope to post today.

 We promise this breaking news exclusive includes a lot of new historical information about the organization of one of the five crime families in New York.

Bookmaker Granted Bail in Odd Arson Case

In January 2010 a flurry of news reports wrote about a fire in the Middletown restaurant Enzo's.

One of them read: Faulty Fry-O-Later sparks restaurant fire:

"A single-alarm fire started by a faulty Fry-O-Lator inflicted an estimated $250,000 worth of damages at Enzo's Restaurant & Lounge early Sunday morning. One person was injured in the blaze, fire officials said."

The "one person" we now know was the co-owner of the restaurant; he was drunk and somehow got locked inside the place after the other owner started the fire at midnight, according to prosecutors. Earlier in the day, he'd sprayed cooking oil around the kitchen's deep fryer. A professional arsonist had advised the two men earlier that that was the best way to set Enzo's ablaze without getting caught. The arsonist was wrong, as it turns out.



The owner who sprayed around the cooking oil, then started the fire is reportedly a mobbed-up bookmaker indicted moments before the statute of limitations would have precluded him from being charged with the crime.

A judge granted bail this past Tuesday, Jan. 13, for the reputed mob bookmaker connected to the Genovese crime family. He'd been charged the previous week with allegedly trying to burn down the Middletown restaurant in 2010 to bilk the insurance company.

As conditions for his release, prosecutors urged -- and the judge agreed -- that John Barile of East Hartford be prohibited from possessing "a Taster stun gun or any personal defense devices that can send an electric volt."

Criminal defense lawyer Hebert J. Santos said Barile kept the stun gun and cattle prod for personal protection, but has not had the need to use them, according to a report in the Hartford Courant.
Barile, 51, is charged with conspiracy, arson and fraud in an indictment returned Dec. 30, just hours before the statute of limitations ran out on criminal charges associated with an alleged January 2010 fire at Enzo's Restaurant.

According to a published report, Federal law enforcement officers have kept a close eye on Barile since 1994 when he was arrested as part of a crackdown on what was called the Genovese crime family's western New England branch. Gambling in Hartford was the thrust of the case.

Those arrested included Barile and two Genovese captains, Francesco "Skyball" Scibelli and Carmine "Carlo" Mastrototaro, based in Springfield and Worcester, Mass., respectively.

Barile was charged with racketeering and accused of using threats to collect gambling and loan shark debts.

According to FBI sources, he worked for Tony Volpe, the Hartford lounge owner who ran Hartford for the Genovese family.

Barile and an associate from Springfield, a 250-pound former professional wrestler known as "Big Pat" Poland, were given 30-month sentences after pleading guilty to racketeering conspiracy.

According to the indictment:

Barile is accused of plotting to burn down Enzo's with three unidentified co-conspirators, one of whom is his partner in the restaurant. The indictment charges that an associate helped Barile find someone with "specialized knowledge of fire and fireworks." The specialist examined Enzo's and, the indictment says, the conspirators agreed that their best chance to avoid detection would be to stage a fire at the deep fryer in the restaurant kitchen.

Because business is good around Christmas and New Year's Eve, the indictment said, Barile decided to wait until after the holidays to ignite Enzo's. He sprayed cooking oil around the deep fryer to feed the fire and set the fire midnight on a Sunday.

The indictment said Barile's partner was "inebriated" at the time of the alleged arson and, under circumstances that are not explained, remained locked in Enzo's after the fire began. News reports at the time indicate a fire was reported at Enzo's at 12:45 a.m. and a restaurant employee was treated for smoke inhalation and released.

Barile received an insurance payout for the restaurant, including about $165,000 he deposited into a back account he controlled in November. Under the terms of his release on bail, Barile is confined to his residence, but permitted to work for a relative's landscaping business.

FBI Agent Stole Seized Drugs; Case Dismissed for 28

Please don't click the headline; the Washington Post uses some kind of phantom zone technology that will bring you to their RSS feed; please click the continued link below, instead. Thank you, the management...

Junkie Fed's addiction screwed up cases.

While we focus on organized crime (and are working on multiple stories right now), this story caught our attention today... One has to wonder how often this kind of thing happens, for personal use or not, without the agent getting caught....

The Washington Post reports that FBI agent Matthew Lowry checked out Item 1B4 from the evidence room at the bureau’s Washington field office on an August morning in 2013."

On the log sheet, he scribbled “to lab” in order "to explain why he was taking drugs that had been seized in an undercover operation dubbed Midnight Hustle."




About a year later, he finally delivered the package of heroin to the lab. The item's weight had changed. It was 1.1 grams heavier.

"For 10 months, court records show, the heroin had gone unaccounted for and unmissed."

It is now tainted evidence and the agent who did the tainting "by his own admission, repeatedly stole heroin from evidence bags for his personal use."

The result is that prosecutors have dismissed charges against 28 defendants in three cases; many of those 28 had already been convicted. And that's not the end: up to 150 other defendants may get an opportunity to return to court to get a free pass.

"The revelations have exposed a system of weak checks and balances that allowed Lowry’s thefts and drug use to go undetected for at least 14 months as he worked on a task force focusing on heroin traffickers along the borders of the District, Maryland and Virginia. The problems were discovered only after the agent disappeared after work Sept. 29 and was found by colleagues incoherent, standing next to his disabled bureau car in a construction lot near the Washington Navy Yard."

Upcoming Book Will Detail Mysteries of 1978 Lufthansa Heist

TheCrimeBeat.com: On Dec. 11, 1978, a crew led by mob associate Jimmy Burke pulled off a daring stunning heist at JFK Airport that netted $5 million in cash and $1 million in precious stones.

The case, which was immortalized in Martin Scorsese’s movie “Goodfellas,” has puzzled authorities for 36 years. Only one robber was ever convicted for the crime and the whereabouts of the loot has remained a secret…until now.


In a new book to be released in April, ex-Bonanno captain Dominick Cicale reveals details of the robbery and the mystery of the missing money. At the time, it was the largest cash robbery in U.S. history. The take would be worth about $21 million in today’s dollars....

SEE RELATED STORY:  Cosa Nostra News: Feds Ended "Shelved" Mobster's Inexplicable Rise to Power

James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke in custody of FBI agents. Burke died of cancer in 1996 while in prison.

But what happened to the remainder of the Lufthansa loot? Cicale shares the shocking details in the upcoming book, “Untold Secrets of the Lufthansa Airlines Heist: A Wiseguy Tells All.” The book, penned by journalist Robert Sberna with Cicale, will be available in digital download and paperback format. The book will include excerpts of a firsthand interview with infamous Lucchese associate Henry Hill. A confidant of Burke’s, Hill was the major character in Nicholas Pileggi’s bestselling book, “Wiseguy.” ...


SEE COMPLETE STORY

Jenn Graziano, VH1 Served Cease-and-Desist Letter

"I love the name of it. It came about because I love color.
Color changes your mood." Renee on her "invention"
of the Mob Candy brand, after she posed for this picture.
EXCLUSIVE: Both VH1 and Jennifer Graziano today received cease-and-desist letters from an attorney regarding Renee Graziano's continued use of the Mob Candy name on items for which she does not have the rights, according to a source close to the case who sent us a copy of the two letters.
Noting that Renee had ignored previous letters sent to her, the copyright holders' law firm is putting both the "Mob Wives" network and Jennifer Graziano herself on notice that the firm has been "instructed to begin legal action against you if you allow these infringements to continue."


The firm alleges that VHI and Jennifer Graziano have been "assisting the unauthorized use of this protected trademark and copyrighted name by allowing [Renee] Graziano [to] use your program ‘Mob Wives’ to offer merchandise for sale under this name and by using the name MOBCANDY in the name for her website."
Here is a scanned image of the letter, the same version of which was sent today, January 12, to Jennifer Graziano.


As reported over a year ago, Heath Norman Wasserman holds the copyright for the brand Mobcandy ("Mob Candy" also is covered as part of the trademark) in all but one of the product categories in which Renee Graziano has launched lines under the same brand name.
Wasserman and Frank DiMatteo, owner/publisher of Mob Candy magazine, are partners. At the time of our previous report, DiMatteo had said that two cease-and-desist letters had been sent to Renee Graziano regarding her use of the Mob Candy brand.
Mandatory pic of Natalie Guercio, which we
post in many Mob Wives stories. Just
because we love her...
Wasserman also has dibs on the Mob Candy name in many product categories in addition to the categories in which Renee has launched products -- except for jewelry, which Graziano has properly copyrighted, DiMatteo said.

Wasserman, who is in the vending machine business in Chicago, is planning on extending the Mob Candy brand into additional product categories as well, DiMatteo said, including adult videos.
Wasserman owns the actual copyright -- serial number 85681509.

According to Justia Trademarks, Wasserman has big plans for the brand above and beyond products.

The brand Mobcandy (Mob Candy is listed as well, as a "pseudo mark") includes: "Administration of a discount program for enabling participants to obtain discounts on goods and services through use of a discount membership card; Advertising, marketing, and promoting the goods and services of others via promotion exhibits, video products, Internet, excluding jewelry; Arranging and conducting auctions in the field of promotional events, excluding jewelry; Computerized on-line retail store services in the field of video products, clothing, health and beauty products, all excluding jewelry; Electronic catalog services featuring retail products featuring a wide variety of consumer goods of others, clothing, video products, excluding jewelry; On-line retail store services featuring a wide variety of consumer goods of others, exclusive of jewelry."

Said DiMatteo: "Nobody else can do a magazine."

Renee formally introduced her Mob Candy (by Renee Graziano) on the season four premier episode of the "reality" show "Mob Wives." She had been talking up and promoting the brand for about a year previous to then. Her Mob Candy assortment includes a a lot of products: Mob Candy Jewelry, Mob Candy Apparel , Mob Candy Shoes, and accessories and t-shirts.

Mob Candy magazine was in fact launched in 2007 by others with no ties to her then or now. Prior to the publication, the brand had originally been used for a line of Mafia-inspired clothing. Before even that, there was a company called Mob Candy that sold, well, candy...

Renee, in an interview in which she announced the new endeavor, said she was launching Mob Candy-branded jewelry, shoes and makeup. In addition, Renee actually claimed to have created the brand -- after she had appeared on the very cover of Mob Candy Magazine in 2011. She also included photos from the magazine shoot on her very own website, which have since been removed.

"I love my Mob Candy," Renee said in an interview posted on Celebrity Parents Magazine's website. [The story was removed.]

In that now-deleted interview, Renee was quoted saying of Mob Candy:

"I love the name of it. It came about because I love color. Color changes your mood. And candy makes you feel better. And we can’t forget the mob part. So I put it all together. One day, I was sitting on the couch pigging out, eating M&M’s. I was thinking, “I’m fuckin’ getting fat,” and then I put the two words together. Mob Candy is a fun line; it’s shoes and jewelry and body lotions. It’s everything a mob princess would wear, without the cost."

Renee created her Mob Candy "invention" story because she appeared on the cover of Mob Candy previously.

As noted on the Mob Candy magazine blog: “Not only is she just using the brand name pretending she never heard of it before, she has also done interviews claiming the root of her Mob Candy name idea came into her head randomly after thinking about how she loves colors, and candy has different colors. And of course, she couldn’t forget to add the mob to it, right? That’s how she got the idea!”

It seems a rift occurred between Renee and the magazine when VH1, according to the Mob Candy blog, pressured the magazine to shoot Karen Gravano for the cover instead of Renee Graziano, offering to film the photo shoot and run it during an episode of "Mob Wives," which is what happened. In fact, Mob Candy did four covers of the magazine that month, which may be Renee's motive; this is speculation, however.
On the season four premier of the show, the brand was mentioned first by Natalie Guercio, then one of the new Mob Wives from Philadelphia. Renee ostensibly hired her -- thus giving a reason to bring her on the show -- to be the "face" of Mob Candy.


Were they planning to throw Natalie Guercio under the bus all the way back then?

AMC Docudrama Traces Roots of Five Families

AMC announced Saturday that it will unwrap an eight-episode miniseries, “Making of the Mob: New York,” in which it traces the of roots of each of the five crime families that make up the American Mafia.

The series, each episode of which is an hour long, blends dramatic scenes with interviews, archival footage and VFX and spans back to 1905. It traces the rise of Charles “Lucky”Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, along with other notorious gangsters, who went from street hoods and neighborhood gang members to multi millionaire entrepreneurs and bootleggers following Prohibition.
The project hails from Stephen David's production company, which previously produced History's The Men Who Built America.

"Making of the Mob" is set to debut this spring. 
"We have a long tradition of airing many of the greatest movies about organized crime and have wanted to pair those movies with a piece of original programming for some time,”said AMC's executive vp programming Joel Stillerman.

“Stephen David brought us a show that reminded us what an absolutely spectacular story the truth is with respect to the rise of organized crime in America and the formation of the legendary Five Families. Making of the Mob: New York features fantastic, larger-than-life characters and drama that is better than fiction in every way. This is definitely event television."

Added David: “I’m fascinated by people and relaying history through the personal stories of what they really did. While there have been a number of great films, television shows and books about the mob in America, the entire story has never been put together like this, and I think viewers will be surprised at the very human story of how these men created their own success and made America their land of opportunity.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter: "To bolster its potential, AMC will employ ["Making of the Mob"] as a lead-in for the network's library of mob flicks, including The Godfather, Goodfellas, American Gangster, Donnie Brasco and Scarface. The docudrama will feature interviews with historians, authors, actors, law enforcement personnel and family members, including actors Joe Mantegna and Drea de Matteo, mob attorney and former Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman and Meyer Lansky’s grandson, among others."

Gotti Memoir Beats Anastasia's Gotti Book to Market

Cover of new book by John Gotti Jr.
He did live in his father's shadow.So this is what happened to the movie. John Gotti Jr.'s new memoir may beat George Anastasia's Gotti's Rules to market, but we know the respected Philadelphia-based newspaperman will provide a more objective inside account about the legendary Gambino boss than could any son writing about his father....So we take with a grain of salt Lance's charge below that Anastasia's book is "based almost entirely on the word of disgraced federal witness John Alite."

See what Amazon says of the book Gotti's Rules:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Blood and Honor and The Last Gangster—“one of the most respected crime reporters in the country” (60 Minutes)—comes the sure to be headline-making inside story of the Gotti and Gambino families, told from the unique viewpoint of notorious mob hit-man John Alite, a close associate of Junior Gotti who later testified against him. 

In Gotti’s Rules, George Anastasia, a prize-winning reporter who spent over thirty years covering crime, offers a shocking and very rare glimpse into the Gotti family, witnessed up-close from former family insider John Alite, John Gotti Jr.’s longtime friend and protector. Until now, no one has given up the kind of personal details about the Gottis—including the legendary “Gotti Rules” of leadership—that Anastasia exposes here. Drawing on extensive FBI files and other documentation, his own knowledge, and exclusive interviews with insiders and experts, including mob-enforcer-turned-government-witness Alite, Anastasia pokes holes in the Gotti legend, demystifying this notorious family and its lucrative and often deadly machinations. 

Anastasia offers never-before-heard information about the murders, drug dealing, and extortion that propelled John J. Gotti to the top of the Gambino crime family and the treachery and deceit that allowed John A. “Junior” Gotti to follow in his father’s footsteps. Told from street level and through the eyes of a wiseguy who saw it all firsthand, the result is a riveting look at a family whose hubris, violence, passion, and greed fueled a bloody rise and devastating fall that is still reverberating through the American underworld today. 

Furthermore, Gotti Jr. had to have had a ghostwriter or an editor with a strong hand. More than likely, whatever script had been floating around for the film was simply recast in book format. Laypeople who have never published before are rarely capable of writing a publishable book otherwise....

The book is self-published, so I can't really say that about ghostwriters and editors. I do wonder how Junior came up with the ebook idea.

From Peter Lance:  January 11th, 2015. John Marzulli, who covers organized crime for the N.Y. Daily News yesterday broke a story on the new memoir by John A. “Junior” Gotti to be released this week.

Read The Foreword by Peter Lance. (Download PDF, too).
John Junior
As Marzulli reports, the book had been under wraps for months. It will be published worldwide two weeks before “Gotti’s Rules,” a book by Philadelphia mob reporter George Anastasia based almost entirely on the word of disgraced federal witness John Alite.

Alite, aka “Johnny Corvette,” was a one-time low-level Gambino associate whom the FBI attempted to bill as a kind of latter day “Sammy the Bull’ Gravano during Gotti’s Jr.’s 4th and last prosecution in 2009.

But, as The Associated Press reported, the jury was unanimous in their disbelief of the Albanian-American “associate” who passed himself off as a real wiseguy by calling himself John Aletto.


ALSO READ: Cosa Nostra News: John Alite: Bookmaking "the Least of Doing Anything Wrong"


Last summer while finishing the book, which he penned himself without the help of a ghost writer, John Jr. reached out to me and asked me to write the Foreward to “Shadow of My Father.”Before I agreed, I spent months analyzing thousands of pages of FBI 302 memos and transcripts from the four trials between 2005-2009 in which the DOJ attempted to convict the son of the legendary “King of The Volcano.”
John Alite in pretty good shape for a
"junkie," as Jr called him.
After digesting the research I was astonished at the lengths to which the Feds went to put “Junior” away forever after he withdrew from the Gambino crime family; going, in his words, “on the shelf for life;” refusing to fly the borgata’s flag and renouncing his life in the secret society J. Edgar Hoover mistakenly dubbed (LCN) La Cosa Nostra. At one point between trials Two and Three the FBI even leaked false information suggesting that the younger Gotti had agreed to testify, an act which prosecutors later acknowledged put his life in danger.

My 23 page Foreword serves not only as an introduction to this astonishing biography, but an endorsement of John Jr.’s word against that of self admitted murderer, drug dealer and home invader Alite, who seemed to relish at trial telling the jury how he had tortured a New Jersey electrician he found on his property.

“Shadow of My Father” will be available everywhere this week via amazon.com’s Kindle Direct Publishing and other outlets as both an ebook and a trade paperback.

Read the rest