Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Al Capone's Words of Advice
You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone." - Al Capone
Monday, August 29, 2005
Turncoat details Gotti's alleged crimes on witness stand
The seeds for betrayal were sown in a secret induction ceremony on Christmas Eve 1988, when close friends John A. "Junior" Gotti and Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo swore to uphold the mob's code of silence.
Gotti's infamous father, the Dapper Don, wasn't there because he "did not want to show he's forcing his family into the life," recalled DiLeonardo. "It was a class act."
He offered that description and others about the inner workings of the Gambino crime family last week in federal court amid the Mafia equivalent of a messy divorce.
DiLeonardo
, 50, broke his vow to the Gambinos by pleading guilty in 2003 and agreeing to testify against the younger Gotti at a racketeering trial. During four days on the witness stand, the admitted killer and government's star witness told jurors about Gotti's alleged crimes -- including a botched kidnapping of radio show host Curtis Sliwa -- and about his torment over becoming a turncoat. "John was very, very good to me," DiLeonardo said in one of several odes to the family scion. "I love John."
By his own account, DiLeonardo was to the 41-year-old Gotti what the most notorious Gambino cooperator, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, had been to Gotti's father: his confidant, his enforcer and, possibly, his undoing. The elder Gotti died in prison in 2002 after Gravano's testimony helped put him away a decade earlier.
The grandson of a gangster, DiLeonardo testified that he committed three murders and "extorted everybody I could" while rising through the Gambino ranks. Not all his lessons were learned on the street: He said he twice read "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli.
DiLeonardo said he eventually became a captain charged with collecting kickbacks from the construction industry, with millions of dollars going to Gotti. As a member of a council that assumed control of the family after his father was jailed in 1992, Gotti "had it coming," but was quick to share the wealth, DiLeonardo said. "His gifts were greater than my gifts," he said. "I couldn't keep up with him."
DiLeonardo made enough money himself to build a multimillion-dollar home that featured a fence crowned with gargoyles "to keep away evil," he said. The income also helped support children he had both with his wife and girlfriend -- not an unusual burden, he said, given the "social structure" of the mob. "We don't really socialize with our wives," he explained. "When we go out and commiserate, we don't take our wives to mix among gangsters and killers -- we take our girls. ... You're an oddball if you didn't do it."
DiLeonardo testified that Sliwa was targeted in June 1992 after Gotti grew tired of hearing the rant radio personality and founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting group bash his father on the air. "You guys are going to have to do a piece of work for the family," DiLeonardo quoted Gotti as saying at a meeting with his crew.
The witness said Gotti ordered a "severe hospital beating." Instead Sliwa was shot during a struggle in a stolen cab; he survived, and testified last week against Gotti.
With Gotti in prison on a 1999 racketeering conviction, DiLeonardo was arrested and jailed in 2002. He was soon shocked to learn the Gambinos cut off his income and stripped him of his rank as captain. "They made me a nonentity ... and, above all, broke my heart," he said.
He eventually agreed to cooperate. But he testified that once he pleaded guilty and was released into the witness protection program, he became so distraught by the thought of betraying his "brother John" that he tried to kill himself by overdosing on sleeping pills. "John and I had a special bond in this life, and I always said I'd have undying loyalty to that man," he said. "I love that guy."
DiLeonardo emerged as a key witness last year in a case charging Gotti's uncle with being the acting boss of the Gambinos and with ordering a failed hit on Gravano; the uncle was convicted in 2004 and sentenced last month to 25 years in prison.
While awaiting Gotti's trial, DiLeonardo said, he anxiously scanned newspaper and Web sites for news about his old friend and partner in organized crime. "I has hoping John Jr. may have flipped and I wouldn't have to take the stand," he said. "I was rooting for him to flip."
Gotti's infamous father, the Dapper Don, wasn't there because he "did not want to show he's forcing his family into the life," recalled DiLeonardo. "It was a class act."
He offered that description and others about the inner workings of the Gambino crime family last week in federal court amid the Mafia equivalent of a messy divorce.
DiLeonardo
, 50, broke his vow to the Gambinos by pleading guilty in 2003 and agreeing to testify against the younger Gotti at a racketeering trial. During four days on the witness stand, the admitted killer and government's star witness told jurors about Gotti's alleged crimes -- including a botched kidnapping of radio show host Curtis Sliwa -- and about his torment over becoming a turncoat. "John was very, very good to me," DiLeonardo said in one of several odes to the family scion. "I love John."By his own account, DiLeonardo was to the 41-year-old Gotti what the most notorious Gambino cooperator, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, had been to Gotti's father: his confidant, his enforcer and, possibly, his undoing. The elder Gotti died in prison in 2002 after Gravano's testimony helped put him away a decade earlier.
The grandson of a gangster, DiLeonardo testified that he committed three murders and "extorted everybody I could" while rising through the Gambino ranks. Not all his lessons were learned on the street: He said he twice read "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli.
DiLeonardo said he eventually became a captain charged with collecting kickbacks from the construction industry, with millions of dollars going to Gotti. As a member of a council that assumed control of the family after his father was jailed in 1992, Gotti "had it coming," but was quick to share the wealth, DiLeonardo said. "His gifts were greater than my gifts," he said. "I couldn't keep up with him."
DiLeonardo made enough money himself to build a multimillion-dollar home that featured a fence crowned with gargoyles "to keep away evil," he said. The income also helped support children he had both with his wife and girlfriend -- not an unusual burden, he said, given the "social structure" of the mob. "We don't really socialize with our wives," he explained. "When we go out and commiserate, we don't take our wives to mix among gangsters and killers -- we take our girls. ... You're an oddball if you didn't do it."
DiLeonardo testified that Sliwa was targeted in June 1992 after Gotti grew tired of hearing the rant radio personality and founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting group bash his father on the air. "You guys are going to have to do a piece of work for the family," DiLeonardo quoted Gotti as saying at a meeting with his crew.
The witness said Gotti ordered a "severe hospital beating." Instead Sliwa was shot during a struggle in a stolen cab; he survived, and testified last week against Gotti.
With Gotti in prison on a 1999 racketeering conviction, DiLeonardo was arrested and jailed in 2002. He was soon shocked to learn the Gambinos cut off his income and stripped him of his rank as captain. "They made me a nonentity ... and, above all, broke my heart," he said.
He eventually agreed to cooperate. But he testified that once he pleaded guilty and was released into the witness protection program, he became so distraught by the thought of betraying his "brother John" that he tried to kill himself by overdosing on sleeping pills. "John and I had a special bond in this life, and I always said I'd have undying loyalty to that man," he said. "I love that guy."
DiLeonardo emerged as a key witness last year in a case charging Gotti's uncle with being the acting boss of the Gambinos and with ordering a failed hit on Gravano; the uncle was convicted in 2004 and sentenced last month to 25 years in prison.
While awaiting Gotti's trial, DiLeonardo said, he anxiously scanned newspaper and Web sites for news about his old friend and partner in organized crime. "I has hoping John Jr. may have flipped and I wouldn't have to take the stand," he said. "I was rooting for him to flip."
Friday, August 26, 2005
Curtis Sliwa Describes Nightmare Cab Ride #Gotti #GuardianAngels
A radio host known for mouthing off against the Mafia testified Monday about how a 1992 cab ride became a botched kidnapping that prosecutors say was ordered by John A. "Junior" Gotti.
Taking the witness stand at Gotti's conspiracy trial in federal court in Manhattan, Curtis Sliwa
told jurors that after hailing the cab, a masked gunman hiding in the front passenger seat "popped up like a jack-in-the-box," swore at him and began shooting. "I'm saying to myself, 'This has got to be a nightmare,"' Sliwa testified.
Wounded in the stomach and bleeding profusely, Sliwa discovered the stolen cab had been rigged so he couldn't open the back doors. He said he saved himself by throwing himself into the front seat and out the passenger window as the cab sped down the street.
He testified that he calculated, "I'll take my chances and become a human speed bump, but I have to get out of this cab."
Prosecutors allege Sliwa was targeted after angering the Gambino crime family with his on-air tirades against late mob boss John Gotti, who had been sentenced to life in prison for a racketeering conviction.
Sliwa recalled telling his listeners that the mob was fueling the city's violent drug trade, and labeled the elder Gotti "America's No. 1 drug dealer." After he was jumped and beaten with baseball bats in an earlier attack, he responded by turning up his anti-Gambino rhetoric.
Testifying last week as part of plea deal, the driver of the cab, Joseph "Little Joey" D'Angelo, quoted the younger Gotti as saying of Sliwa, "He's getting personal. I want us to get personal."
Gotti, 41, whose father died in prison in 2002, is accused of a conspiracy to silence Sliwa as part of racketeering charges that could keep him in prison for up to 30 years. He has said he had nothing to do with the attack.
During cross examination, Gotti's lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, sought to portray Sliwa as a con man who repeatedly lied to police and the media in the 1970s and 1980s to promote his Guardian Angels crime-fighting group. The witness conceded that he once concocted a story about personally fighting off a would-be rapist he described as a "6-foot-6 gorilla."
Sliwa also admitted that he made headlines by falsely claiming that police, annoyed by the Guardian Angels, had kidnapped and threatened him. He later told reporters he wasn't surprised his credibility came under attack.
"Frankly, some of the things I did in the past, I deserved that line of questioning," Sliwa said.
Taking the witness stand at Gotti's conspiracy trial in federal court in Manhattan, Curtis Sliwa
told jurors that after hailing the cab, a masked gunman hiding in the front passenger seat "popped up like a jack-in-the-box," swore at him and began shooting. "I'm saying to myself, 'This has got to be a nightmare,"' Sliwa testified.
Wounded in the stomach and bleeding profusely, Sliwa discovered the stolen cab had been rigged so he couldn't open the back doors. He said he saved himself by throwing himself into the front seat and out the passenger window as the cab sped down the street.
He testified that he calculated, "I'll take my chances and become a human speed bump, but I have to get out of this cab."
Prosecutors allege Sliwa was targeted after angering the Gambino crime family with his on-air tirades against late mob boss John Gotti, who had been sentenced to life in prison for a racketeering conviction.
Sliwa recalled telling his listeners that the mob was fueling the city's violent drug trade, and labeled the elder Gotti "America's No. 1 drug dealer." After he was jumped and beaten with baseball bats in an earlier attack, he responded by turning up his anti-Gambino rhetoric.
Testifying last week as part of plea deal, the driver of the cab, Joseph "Little Joey" D'Angelo, quoted the younger Gotti as saying of Sliwa, "He's getting personal. I want us to get personal."
Gotti, 41, whose father died in prison in 2002, is accused of a conspiracy to silence Sliwa as part of racketeering charges that could keep him in prison for up to 30 years. He has said he had nothing to do with the attack.
During cross examination, Gotti's lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, sought to portray Sliwa as a con man who repeatedly lied to police and the media in the 1970s and 1980s to promote his Guardian Angels crime-fighting group. The witness conceded that he once concocted a story about personally fighting off a would-be rapist he described as a "6-foot-6 gorilla."
Sliwa also admitted that he made headlines by falsely claiming that police, annoyed by the Guardian Angels, had kidnapped and threatened him. He later told reporters he wasn't surprised his credibility came under attack.
"Frankly, some of the things I did in the past, I deserved that line of questioning," Sliwa said.
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