Gotti, John Joseph, Jr. (27 Oct. 1940-10 June 2002), organized crime leader, was born John Joseph Gotti, Jr., in the Bronx, New York, the son of John and Philomena "Fannie" Gotti, first-generation Americans of Neapolitan origin. The fifth of thirteen children, Gotti later expressed disdain for his father, whose sporadic employment as a construction hand prompted frequent relocations of his family. By 1952 when the family settled into a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, Gotti had already become a defiant student and frequent truant. At age sixteen and a member of the gang the Fulton-Rockaway Boys, Gotti dropped out of Franklin K. Lane High School. He worked odd jobs. Frequently he was arrested for public intoxication, street fighting, burglary, and automobile theft. His marriage to Victoria DiGiorgio from 1962--which produced five children--was often plagued by financial strains and separations.

Gotti's bravado soon caught the attention of Aniello Dellacroce, a senior figure in the crime family controlled by Carlo Gambino; Gambino was rumored to have been involved in the assassination of Albert Anastasia, the previous head, in 1957. Eager to ingratiate himself with Dellacroce and Gambino, Gotti attempted bolder criminal ventures including bookmaking, loan-sharking, and pilferage at the John F. Kennedy International Airport. In 1968 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested and convicted Gotti and two associates for hijacking and cargo theft at the airport. After serving a three-year sentence in prison Gotti resumed his association with Dellacroce and--inspired by Dellacroce's stories of past heroics by Anastasia--adopted the especially brutal waterfront racketeer Anastasia as his role model. In 1973 Gotti and a friend, Angelo Ruggiero, murdered a man suspected of killing Gambino's nephew. In appreciation Gambino hired Roy Cohn, a well-known New York attorney, to defend the two. Cohn negotiated a deal whereby they received sentences of only four years each.

Gotti's notoriety freed him from most ordinary restraints. For example, while still incarcerated in Green Haven Correctional Facility in upstate New York, the seemingly healthy Gotti would reportedly be driven by guards to visit a physician in Brooklyn. And while in the metropolitan area he would dine in public restaurants and visit his wife and children at their home in Howard Beach, Queens. Released in 1977, Gotti burnished his reputation for violence. In one incident in 1980 a Howard Beach neighbor, John Favara, accidentally killed Gotti's youngest son when the twelve-year-old unexpectedly rode his motorbike into the path of Favara's automobile. Four months later a terrified Favara was assaulted, shoved into a van, and disappeared forever; it is believed that Favara was kidnapped and killed by friends of Gotti's--Gotti himself was conveniently out of town at the time of the disappearance.

Claiming to be a plumbing salesman, Gotti in fact was an important ally of Dellacroce within the Gambino crime organization, which was headed by Paul Castellano after Gambino's death in 1976. From the early 1970 Gotti directed extensive bookmaking, loan-sharking, and other illegal activities from the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Queens and the Ravenite Social Club in Little Italy, Manhattan. Recklessly, he required subordinates to report to him in person, and he often discussed business with them while walking on the street. Law enforcement officials photographed him doing this, and they gathered vital intelligence through surreptitiously placed listening devices.

In 1985 federal officials brought a racketeering indictment against Gotti and narcotics charges against two subordinates--his brother Gene Gotti and his longtime companion, Angelo Ruggiero. The charges were part of a broad offensive against underworld figures under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act of 1970, which mandated heavy penalties for "membership" in an ongoing criminal enterprise. Already indicted in a related case, Castellano--who reportedly objected to drug trafficking--was said to be furious with Gotti for permitting narcotics dealing within the family. Strains within the Gambino organization almost certainly played a part in Castellano's assassination outside Sparks Steak House in Manhattan on 16 December 1985. Salvatore Gravano, a close associate of Gotti's, later testified that e and Gotti had arranged the killing and that the two of them watched it from a nearby automobile. Law enforcement experts and the press immediately pronounced Gotti the new "boss" or head of the Gambino family.

Gotti enjoyed his celebrity. Despite what seemed to be compelling taped evidence a jury acquitted Gotti of the RICO charges. A subsequent state indictment for the shooting of a labor official, also based largely on audio-recorded conversations, collapsed in 1990. In both cases prosecutors later demonstrated evidence of jury tampering. As a result of the two verdicts the press labeled Gotti the "Teflon Don" and later, as his wardrobe became ever more elegant, the "Dapper Don." He wore double-breasted suits that cost $2,000, accented by hand-painted silk ties costing $400. He had his silver-streaked hair trimmed daily and swept into a coiffure. A cult personality, he teased law enforcement personnel, preened for the press, commented knowledgeably on the exploits of the gangsters Al Capone and Anastasia, and confided that he had learned much about leadership from Niccolò Machiavelli's early sixteenth-century treatise The Prince. He also indulged his extensive gambling addiction, had several sexual affairs, and in all probability fathered at least one child by a woman other than his wife. National news outlets also showed interest in the Teflon Don: journalist Geraldo Rivera presented an hour long special on "the untouchable godfather," and Time magazine featured a cover story on Gotti--the first gangster to be profiled in this manner since Al Capone.

Gotti's garrulity proved to be his undoing. In 1991, largely on the basis of taped conversations, federal prosecutors again indicted the Dapper Don. This time, however, they won pleas disqualifying Gotti's veteran attorneys and sequestering the jury. They also concluded a deal with Gravano whereby this underboss agreed to testify against Gotti in exchange for a lighter sentence. In April 1992 the jury found Gotti guilty of thirteen violations of the RICO statute, including murder and racketeering, and the judge sentenced him to life in the maximum-security U.S. penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. Prosecutors claimed that he then appointed his son, John A. Gotti, as his successor even while personally attempting to direct his criminal operations from inside prison walls. Recorded conversations from the penitentiary, however, indicate that Gotti soon became disillusioned with his son's stewardship. These prison tapes ultimately helped prosecutors incarcerate both John A. Gotti and two of the Teflon Don's brothers on RICO charges. "That's the end of the ballgame," Gotti quipped.

In 1998 physicians diagnosed Gotti as suffering from neck and throat cancer, and he died four years later in a federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri. After an elaborate funeral he was buried near the bodies of several other significant underworld figures in Saint John's Cemetery in Queens.

A bold and violent criminal entrepreneur, Gotti succeeded in transforming himself into a media celebrity just as federal officials, energized with the RICO statute, sought to destroy Italian American influence in organized crime. His vanity and recklessness sped along that process.

Gotti's bloody and colorful antics attracted the attention of gifted writers as well as prosecutors. Although they need to be read critically, the best accounts are by journalists. Of special value are Selwyn Raab, Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires (2005), and Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci, Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti (1988). James B. Jacobs, Busting the Mob: "United States v. Cosa Nostra" (1994), is especially useful on the federal assault on organized crime in the 1980s and early 1990s. Peter Maas, Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia (1997), provides the perspectives of Gotti's most important nemesis. Probably the best Web site is https://www.GangLandNews.com, run by veteran crime watcher Jerry Capeci.