Posted on 06/01/2007 7:45:35 AM PDT by Calpernia
A federal appeals court upheld Peter Gotti's 25-year prison sentence for ordering a failed hit on Mafia turncoat Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, whose testimony doomed Gotti's mob boss brother John to die behind bars.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a decision dated Wednesday, ruled the late federal judge Richard C. Casey acted properly in overseeing the Manhattan trial of Peter Gotti.
Gotti, 67, was convicted in December 2004 of racketeering conspiracy. A former sanitation worker, Gotti was ordered by Casey to begin serving his sentence only after completing a 9 1/2-year prison term from a Brooklyn racketeering case.
A three-judge appeals court panel concluded the judge acted properly in letting the jury hear evidence of murders carried out by the Gambino organized crime family once led by John Gotti, who was sentenced in 1992 to life in prison and died there a decade later.
The killings were not carried out by the defendants but proved the existence of a criminal enterprise in which the defendants participated, the court said.
The appeals court said it was also proper to let the jury hear statements John Gotti made in prison to Peter Gotti. In one, John Gotti says of Gravano, "We'll, we'll, we'll answer this rat."
Gravano was the key prosecution witness in John Gotti's racketeering conviction. John Gotti, once known as the "Teflon Don" for repeatedly beating government charges, was convicted after his once-trusted underboss left the Gambino crime family for the federal witness protection program.
On the witness stand, Gravano admitted involvement in 19 murders. He served a five-year sentence and was relocated to Arizona, but he quit the witness program and promoted a biography about his criminal exploits.
Trial evidence showed Peter Gotti exercised his power to order killings while he was the family's boss by ordering the murder of Gravano and providing $70,000 to carry it out.
Prosecutors said Peter Gotti and Thomas "Huck" Carbonaro, a reputed mob captain, conspired with associates in 1999 and 2000 to kill Gravano in Arizona with a homemade land mine or a hunting rifle. The appeals court also upheld Carbonaro's 70-year prison sentence.
The plan was spoiled when Gravano was arrested on drug dealing charges in February 2000. Gravano was sentenced in 2002 to 19 years in Arizona state prison for leading an Ecstasy drug ring.
At trial, prosecutors said Peter Gotti was a leader in the Gambino crime family throughout the 1990s and accepted positions as acting boss in 1997 and boss in 2001. They said he sought revenge against Gravano for the devastating impact of his testimony at John Gotti's trial.
The appeals court also agreed that Peter Gotti should not spend less time in prison because of his age and health. It noted that Casey, who died of a heart attack in March at age 74, had cited trial testimony showing Gotti only need to direct subordinates to commit criminal acts.
"We find nothing unreasonable in the sentence," the appeals court wrote.
A lawyer for Gotti did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Thursday.
Mobsters Allegedly Took Control Of 2 Labor Unions
Something's missing in union vote: The mob,Is corrupt local clean, or are wiseguys biding time?
Pete Gotti is seen as the defacto head of the Gambino La Cosa Nostra (LCN) Family. Originally a gopher and courier for his famous brother, shuttling tribute to him on the weekends from crews. He later managed the Bergin Hunt & Fish Social Club of Ozone Park, Queens, which served as his original headquarters and later as his office.
Pete Gotti had originally surprised mob watchers and law enforcement. He proved much less talkative, preferring to meet irregularly and rarely in public. However this former sanitation employee has since been snagged in two serious indictments. The first involved a shakedown on action film actor Steven Seagal. The second is the extortion of container facilities and labor racketeering involving the ILA union on the Brooklyn waterfront. He was indicted along with capo Sonny Ciccone. His subsequent indictment and refusal by American justice to grant him bail, prevented him from attending his brother's public funeral in July 2002.
Peter Gotti is the last of the Gotti brothers on the streets. He was once a city sanitation employee until an injury allowed him to collect disability and devote his time to La Cosa Nostra. Tried and acquitted in the "Windows Case", brother Pete became a collector of profits on behalf of his brother and became more active in day to day criminal affairs. When his nephew John "Junior" was convicted for racketeering in 2000, Uncle Pete stepped up and took over as acting boss. Originally seen as not so bright he has proven himself capable and effective. He still calls the Bergen Hunt Fish Social Club of Ozone Park, Queens his homebase. He occasionally stops by but has desperately tried to avoid the spotlight which plagued his brother John during his brief and public time as criminal head.
John "Junior" Gotti:
John "Junior" Gotti was not like his father in several ways. He was privy to the ill gotten spoils as the son of a top earning Gambino capo and later boss. He had completed high school and was raised in the respectable Queens neighborhood of Howard Beach. This was unlike his father who never even made it to junior high and was raised in near poverty conditions of Brooklyn. The younger Gotti donned sweatsuits not the Italian suits that were so prominently a part of his father's wardrobe.
Upon being "made", he was given capo status. His crew was mainly younger Gambino soldiers, often considered reckless and he too preferred to make the rounds of Manhattan as one. He would be the executive of a trucking company, although appears to have never worked an honest day's work in his life and was later building his own portfolio. The younger Gotti would rely on loansharking and bookmaking, funneling profits into the now defunct Club Boca of Boca Raton, FL and several property holdings in the sunshine state. It should be noted that two unsolved murders in both Deerfield Beach and Boca Raton, with ties to the Gambino LCN Family, would occur during "Junior's" tenure.
Upon his father's 1992 conviction a rotating panels of capos would act as boss and leader of the Gambino crime family. As a result of turncoat underboss Sammy Gravano, most would cop pleas in fear of his testimony. The younger Gotti and his uncle Peter would fill the role as the new leaders. With this, law enforcement began to step up their investigation on him and his uncle.
When the FBI raided his home, an estimated $358,000 from his wedding purse was found, along with a list of mobsters who attended, the amounts they gave and respective family affiliation. In addition there was guns and a list of recently inducted Lucchese LCN family soldiers. The younger Gotti took a plea on racketeering charges in 1999, unlike his father who fought and lost.
Mob bump...fogetaboutit
For the Soprano’s fans....Some Real Life Connections:
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-1723.html
Mobster who inspired gay Sopranos’ star is jailed
14-June-2006
Ross von Metzke
The real-life mobster who ordered a hit on a gay mob boss, and whose story inspired an entire season of suspense surrounding gay mobster Vito Spatafore (Joe Gannascoli) in TV series’ The Sopranos, has been sentenced to life in prison.
Stefano Vitabile, 71, was sentenced to life in prison for ordering the 1992 slaying of acting DeCavalcante crime boss John (Johnny Boy) D’Amato, who was killed when he was outed by his fellow mobsters, according to New York’s Daily News.
D’Amato’s family served as the inspiration for HBO’s The Sopranos, television’s critically praised drama that follows the daily life of a family of mobsters.
It was after Sopranos writers read about Vitabile’s 2003 trial in federal court that Gannascoli urged them to make his Vito Spatafore character gay.
On this season’s Sopranos, Spatafore left his wife and kids when two mobsters spotted him in a gay bar. He was killed in a motel room as his brother in law, who ordered the hit, looked on.
Gannascoli did the gay press circuit leading up to this season’s killing, and told the press he felt the writers of the show treated his character with the respect he deserved. The killing, he said, was a case of art imitating life.
Though the trial showed Vitabile wasn’t in Mill Basin, Brooklyn the night D’Amato was fatally shot, feds argued it was he who signed off on the hit.
“Nobody’s going to respect us if we have a gay homosexual boss sitting down discussing business with other families,” DeCavalcante turncoat Anthony Capo told jurors in 2003, according to the Associated Press.
Capo admitted to shooting D’Amato four times as D’Amato sat in the backseat of a car. Capo said they had told D’Amato they were going for something to eat.
Vitabile was convicted of conspiring in two other mob-related murders and conspiring to commit extortion. A video played during the trail showed him to be close friends with late mob boss John Gotti.
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