Free Republic

A juror in John A. (Junior) Gotti's federal conspiracy trial bailed out just as deliberations began yesterday, after telling fellow jurors she feared for her safety, the Daily News has learned. Judge Shira Scheindlin granted the woman's request to be excused, which came moments after a jury foreman was picked and the panel was about to begin deliberations. "There's a verdict, Charlie," Gotti joked to attorney Charles Carnesi, when the foreman sent a second note.

A former bartender at John A. Gotti's social club testified yesterday that the club had hot-pink walls and an elaborate buzzer system and that a crucial prosecution witness — a turncoat mobster who claims that he made plans in the club to carry out a kidnapping Mr. Gotti had ordered — was never there. The bartender, George DiBello, suggested that the witness, Joseph D'Angelo, would surely have noticed the unusual décor of Our Friends Social Club, in Ozone Park, Queens, if he had been there, as he claimed in his testimony. Was there anything unusual about the décor of the...

Maybe they should have called him the Dapper Don Juan. A mob snitch stunned a Manhattan courtroom yesterday with the charge that Gambino family man John Gotti fathered a love child with a mystery mistress. Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo testified that the late mob boss' son - who is on trial - told him about the philandering. "His father had a secret second family and a daughter he fathered out of wedlock," DiLeonardo said on the stand in Manhattan Federal Court.

John "Junior" Gotti, who insists he quit the mob family run by his late father, the "Dapper Don," watched jury selection start yesterday at his racketeering retrial in Manhattan. One prospective juror was quickly disqualified: a former supervisor of the FBI's organized crime squad. The most serious charge facing Gotti is the 1992 kidnapping of radio host Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting group, who allegedly was targeted by "Junior" Gotti because of his on-air rants against the late John Gotti.

The apple of John Gotti's eye is rotten to the core, said a Brooklyn judge .......Richard Martino, 46, duped (victims) into doling out millions of dollars to smutty Internet and phone scams. The Gambino soldier pleaded guilty to racketeering and mail and wire fraud for bilking $650 million from porn perusers....admitted to luring visitors onto porn Web sites by promising the steamed-up surfers "free tours." Internet users would then be billed up to $90 when they gave their credit-card number. Countless other victims responded to raunchy magazine ads offering free phone sex, but their numbers would be billed $30 a...

The jailed son of late mob boss John Gotti neared freedom on Monday after a judge agreed to release him on $7 million bond, less than a week after declaring a mistrial on the bulk of his racketeering case. Under bail conditions approved by U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin, John A. ``Junior'' Gotti would be released from a federal lockup in lower Manhattan, but remain under house arrest in his home on Long Island until a possible retrial early next year. Gotti, 41, was still in custody Monday as paperwork was finalized. His lawyers said he could be home with...

Guardian angels founder Curtis Sliwa couldn't believe his eyes: The Mafia boss who - according to a key witness - ordered him killed 13 years ago managed to escape conviction. Here, the outspoken radio host tells Daily News reporter Adam Nichols that he now fears John A. (Junior) Gotti wants the botched job finished: Now he wants me dead. I am a dead man walking. John Gotti Jr. will rejoin his family, and I know there are Gotti cohorts who have taken a solemn vow to do what they failed to do before: end my life. They're going to celebrate...

John Gotti was in solitary confinement for 11 years. Nobody asked for a silk pillow, but John Gotti was not given even the basest of human dignity whatsoever. I heard all the stories about his supposed victims. I can't comment about a world outside that I was not privy to, but common sense would dictate that people going into that life know right up front the ramifications they may one day have to face. You don't get forced into that life, you enter willingly. John Gotti was not by any means a model citizen. But I believe that when he...

Ain’t No Jive Bro: GOP’s Inappropriate Soul Man November 2, 2004 By Debbie Schlussel Printer Friendly Why is the GOP using Don King, a convicted murderer, as its messenger to Black America? Recent polls show that Blacks may double their vote for George W. Bush over that of 2000. But if Election Day results in Black America match these polls, it will be because of the GOP’s message of opportunity, self-help, and opposition to gay marriage (on the ballots in many States). Not because of Don King, the sleazy boxing promoter. So, why are Republicans touting King as their ambassador...

On December 16, 1985 I was in the middle of my first trip to New York City. I had gone to visit a college roommate who was living and working in Midtown, and while he spent his days at work in what was then called the Pan Am Building I occupied myself by walking the streets of Manhattan. I covered lots of ground that day, walking from the Battery to Wall Street and the World Trade Center, then working my way up to midtown and all its Christmastide wonders in time to meet my friend when he left the...