Onetime "Shooter and Gentleman" Gene Gotti Embittered by Prison

courtesy of Wikimedia Commons 
REVISED: "I was part of the 'Cowboy Case'," our source said. "We kidnapped people for ransom and murdered some of them. That was all mob connected, with the Gambino crime family."

The "cowboy crew" was notorious in 1991, 1992. They were featured on America's Most Wanted, newspapers ran stories about them. (We are posting this as part of a larger story we are writing about Gene Gotti; we are also, yes, still working on the Cowboy Crew story.)

Our source was born into the life. "When I was 16 years old I carried a .357 Magnum and worked as a bouncer at a mob nightclub.

"I'm 53 now. I just completed a sentence in another racketeering extortion case."




Our source has served some serious prison time, at places like McKean and Allenwood penitentiaries, in Pennsylvania.

"I was around all these guys," he said. "I walked the track with Gene Gotti every day."



Gene became a made member of the Gambino crime family in 1976, working with brother John who ran the South Ozone Park crew. By the early 1980s, Gene operated a huge illegal drug operation along with Gambino mobsters John Carneglia and Angelo Ruggiero, under the direction of then capo John Gotti. Others were involved as well.

In 1985, John Gotti arranged Castellano's assassination and took over the crime family. Soon after, John named Gene official capo of the South Ozone Park crew.

Gene was involved in several mob hits -- and was given one of the highest compliments one gangster can give another. While on the street, Gene was a "shooter and a gentleman."

Gene also was a successful gambler; unlike his brother who was widely known for being a degenerate gambler who never won.

Gene in fact reportedly loved telling John how much he'd won, say, at the racetrack. John Gotti routinely gambled away hundreds of thousands of dollars in one weekend -- betting on anything from football to the horses to basketball to two cockroaches running up the wall (depending on who you ask).

On May 24, 1989, after two mistrials, Gene was convicted of running a multimillion-dollar heroin smuggling ring. Two jurors were dismissed from the third trial, including an alternate.

On July 8, 1989, Gene was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison. After his sentencing, the Gambino family demoted Gene from capo to soldier because he was in prison. His projected release date is September 14, 2018, when he will be 72 years old.

Ironically, Gene Gotti was given an opportunity to accept a plea deal that would've permitted a prison sentence of around 10 to 15 years; meaning he would've been free to celebrate the Millennium. However, John Gotti "adhering to the mob dictum that forbids admitting guilt urged them to go to trial. Gotti, then the newly coronated king of the Gambino family, then tried to fix the jury, according to prosecutors. But things did not go according to plan...."



A friend of our source's, a Luchese member, was Gene Gotti's cellmate at McKean.The Luchese member also was close with Louis DiBono, a member of the Gambino crime family murdered in October 1990. Shot three times in the head, his body was found in a car in an underground parking garage at the World Trade Center. John Gotti Senior was convicted of ordering the hit.

Our source noted that in addition to DiBono, the Luchese button man also was "tight with Gene."

"Gene would badmouth everyone," our source said.

He walked with Gene every morning -- and once he was off for the rest of his day, Gene warned his cellmate (not knowing his cellmate was friends with our source): "Patty, you better be careful, he was kidnapping guys."

"Patty put him in his place – he told Gene, 'It was one of our kind who gave him the orders.'"

The source noted that John Alite saved his life in Allenwood.

"He [Alite] was there before me. There were a lot of guys from Philly mob there, and guys from different families. But John was the man on the compound.

Our source soon encountered a problem with members of the Philadelphia mob family in Allenwood at the time. He didn't want to get involved in some kind of ongoing dispute between the Philly mob guys and some Muslims. The feud was supposedly caused by a loudmouth Philly mobster who was jumped.

"I didn’t get involved because I didn’t like the situation," the source explained. "The guys from Phillly weren’t too happy with me."

So what did they do? They put a hit on him.

"John Alite saved my ass," he told us. "He said, 'Leave this fucking guy alone, he’s in the right.'"

The Philly guys also were abusing some older Luchese gangsters, men in their seventies, the source said.

The Luchese members had started to lord it over the Philadelphia gangsters, who finally got tired of it. Johnny "Gongs" Casasanto was among the first to stand up to the older Luchese gangsters.

"They're old, they're doing 30-year sentences and they were getting abused by these kids from Philadelphia."

It wasn't only our source who received Alite's assistance in prison.

"Alite stuck up for Joe Gambino at McKean because Gene was abusing him. You don’t run in that life and not know every move on the compound. I saw a lot of it. Gene was abusing his own fucking guys – the Gambino brothers. He wants everyone to kiss his ass because of his last name.

"Backstabbing treacherous fucking people... The loyalty don’t run deep with them."