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John Gotti Sr. The Prison Years

Apr 23

6 min read

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“The Teflon is gone. The Don is covered in velcro” said FBI agent James Fox on April 2, 1992. John Gotti had just been convicted on all charges in a racketeering case that involved 5 murders, obstruction of justice, bribery, tax evasion and loansharking. Here is a closer look at Gotti’s life after the conviction. 



Fall of The Teflon Don

Gotti was sent to the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois after his conviction. It was a massive crash of one of the mafia’s biggest bosses in history. John was a rising star in the family, becoming an acting capo shortly after he was made. During his time as a boss, he was a constant on the nightly news with his confident grin and two thousand dollar suits. 


The government brought case after case against Gotti and his crew. They failed each time on the first three. One assault case had the victim unable to identify Gotti in court eliciting the famous headline “I Forgotti”. Then in a racketeering case, Sammy Gravano was able to rig the jury. Then he was acquitted of assault once again in 1990, becoming “The Teflon Don”.


 The FBI  finally caught a break when Gotti was caught talking business in an apartment above the Ravenite Social Club. He implicated himself and Gravano in multiple murders. His badmouthing of Sammy led to Gravano cooperating with the FBI, bringing down Gotti, the Gambino Family and various powerful members of the other four families. 


Sammy served a couple years and walked away free in 1994. Gotti would spend 23 hours a day in a tiny prison cell at Marion, with an hour to walk in the yard each day. Almost immediately, his prison life began to eat away at him physically, although mentally he appeared tough as ever. An old school gangster who prided himself on sticking to the code of omerta. 


A life sentence with no possibility of parole did nothing to hinder his deadly obsession with being boss of the Gambino Family. His orders would be relayed through his son John Jr. who he named acting boss in 1993. He also communicated his orders through his brother Peter Gotti. 


Gotti Jr’s promotion didn’t sit well with the rest of the family but no one made any moves against him other than the authorities. He was not a polished gangster like his father. He spent the next several years fighting off legal troubles and never able to get the respect of the family. Gotti Sr. knew his son was not up to the job but the only other option would have been Pete. 



Lashing Out

John Gotti was not about to fade into obscurity. He still had that highly arrogant streak to his personality. Behind bars though, he was vulnerable. There’s much speculation about what caused the incident between Gotti and fellow inmate Walter Johnson. Some say Gotti antagonized Johnson and may have made a racist remark. 


What is known is that Gotti took a beating on July 18, 1996, and was bloodied up in the process. Pictures later surfaced of Gotti with a big gash on his forehead and a bloody nose. He reacted to the incident in typical Gotti fashion, by putting out a hit out on Walter Johnson. He reportedly paid the Aryan brotherhood $25,000 to take care of the job. 


Sammy Gravano recently discussed this on his podcast. He said Gotti also used the ABs to put a hit on Gravano, Frank LoCascio, Joe Watts and Danny Marino. Gotti offered another $25,000 for each of these contracts, none of which was ever carried out. Some of the ABs who weren’t too fond of Gotti later told Sammy about Gotti’s 5 murder requests. 


Johnson was quickly transferred to another prison which undoubtedly saved his life. He was sent to Supermax in Colorado where he served 5 more years. The Aryans never caught up with him and Johnson was released in 2001. Within weeks of his release, he killed a police officer. While awaiting trial, he was stabbed 40 times by a fellow inmate but survived.


It was never determined if the stabbing was related to Gotti. No one was ever charged. The beating that Gotti took from Johnson and not being able to have him killed was a wake up call for Gotti. He no longer held the cards and the power. There were a number of violent and predatory inmates who would have been happy to make a name off hurting or killing the aging gangster. 


By the late 1990s it was all falling apart. Gotti had long since exhausted all appeals. His son was considered an embarrassment in the acting boss position. The commission wanted Gotti and Gotti Jr. to step down. Sr. had no intention of stepping down but Gotti Jr. actually did make a wise move and walked away from the mafia by all accounts. 


This forced Gotti to insert Peter Gotti as acting boss. Peter was such a big step down in comparison to past Gambino Family bosses that it felt like a sad example of how far the mafia itself has fallen. John Gotti was also taking heat from his wife Victoria. She had looked the other way for decades but now insisted she would divorce him if he didn’t allow John Jr. to walk away from the mafia. 


Bad News

In 1998, Gotti was experiencing many physical ailments. After seeing the prison doctor, it was discovered that he was in the early stages of throat cancer. He was taken from Marion to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners (MCFP). There he would go under the knife and have the cancerous tumor removed. 


For a while, it looked like Gotti might survive the battle with cancer, even though he was now a shadow of his former self. During this time, Gotti learned of Sammy Gravano’s ecstasy arrest. He had tried to get the Aryans to kill Sammy but could not get the job done on that either. For Gotti, seeing Gravano go to prison was the next best thing. 


During visits with daughter Victoria and brother Pete, John Gotti displayed his infamous brashness saying that there would never be another one like him. He was irked with the disrespectful behavior of his 10 year old grandson and told him “you’ll never forget the ass kicking you get from me”. 


He had a sit down with son John Jr. in a last ditch effort to keep him in the Gambino Family. John Jr. tried unsuccessfully to explain to his badly fading father that he wanted to take a plea to his charges and walk away from the mafia. Father was hearing none of it. Jr. would eventually defy his father’s wishes and take a plea deal. 


In 2000, Gotti found out that his cancer came back. He was once again sent to the medical center for treatment. He would never return to Marion. His condition began to quickly erode. Despite almost certain death, he remained a staunch loyalist to La Cosa Nostra. He never opened up about his mafia days and was resolved to take any unknown secrets to the grave. 


The Done is Gone


The world famous Teflon Don would suffer tremendously over his last year of life. The throat cancer caused painful sores and swelling. A last picture of Gotti taken around 2001 shows him nearly unrecognizable. He was 60 years old but looked to be in his 80s. Sammy Gravano said that he was shown the picture and had no idea it was John Gotti.


He was bed ridden for months before dying on June 10, 2002. He was denied a requiem mass by the church. Hundreds of people did go to his funeral which was not held in a church. He was buried right next to his beloved son Frank, who was hit by a car and killed in 1980. Because of the damage he did to the mafia, none of the other five family leaders attended his funeral. 


The Medical Center for Prisoners (MCFP) in Springfield has been the final destination for several high profile mafia bosses over the years. The list reads like a who’s who of mafia dons over the last 50 years.

Vito Genovese - Genovese boss 1969 

Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno - Genovese boss 1992. 

Anthony “Tony Ducks” Corallo - Lucchese boss 2000. 

John Gotti “The Teflon Don” - Gambino boss 2002

Vincent “The Chin” Gigante - Genovese boss 2005

Gennaro “Jerry Lang” Langella - Colombo Family acting boss 2013

Apr 23

6 min read

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