Results tagged “gottijr”

John Gotti Jr. is like the FBI's Great White Whale! After his three recent trials ended in mistrial--prompting a prosecutor to say that going after Junior "was above his pay grade"--the feds are at it again, arrested the former Junior don of the Gambino crime family at his Oyster Bay home this morning.

Ha! Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa wants to take John Gotti Jr. on his offer. Gotti Jr., who was unsucccessfully tried three times for allegedly shooting and kidnapping Sliwa, told reporters on Tuesday that he'd take a polygraph test "on national TV" if the FBI agent who spread rumors that Gotti was becoming a government informant was charged. Last night, Sliwa said on NY1's Inside City Hall - holding a bunch of cash, "John Gotti,...

John Gotti Jr. interrupted his lawyer and spoke with reporters after appearing at Federal Court in White Plains yesterday. Gotti, reacting to a 2006 story in the NY Post which claimed he was becoming a government informant, became angry and said that his family was scared of a possible mob hit:My family lives in fear as a result of this. What happens next? Tell me, what happens next? Does it make it all better if...

The feds must believe if you try, try, try and fail, fail, fail, you must try again, because it seems they are going to charge John Gotti Jr. with a new set of murder charges. The Post reports "Junior will likely be charged with at least five murders," including a Queens man who Gotti Jr. "allegedly disemboweled" in 1983, using a boxcutter or linoleum knife. And that's not all: Junior allegedly got help from "more...

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: Airmail in Brooklyn, truck vs train overpass in 31st St & 20th Ave in Queens, an amputation at Grant St & St Pauls Ave in Staten Island and a bomb scare at Broadway and Mercer (NYU) in Manhattan.
• A former deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani is now an "ambassador" for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. But it's not that shocking, since Fran Reiter had lead the Liberal Party before joining the Giuliani administration...or is it?
• Who decides how subway posters are hung, because this is another example of great subway-poster-juxtaposition?
• A piece of the Willamette Meteorite, which is at the American Museum of Natural History, is being auctioned off. And, no, the museum is not selling it - the private meteorite collection who they traded the 28-pound piece (getting a piece of Mars in return) is behind the sale.
• One man has been arrested in the Labor Day weekend bias attack of Top Chef Season 2 contestant Josie Smith-Malave. The attack was outside a Sea Cliff, Long Island bar; Smith-Malave said that about 12 people punched and kicked her and two of her friends and that the bar's employees, who went outside to watch the attack, didn't do anything.
• The NYPD's new headquarters for the towing division are in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
• Staten Island DA Daniel Donovan is warning residents about the fake IRS "Customer Satisfaction Survey" scam because taxpayers aren't really customers anyway.
• Speaking of taxes, John Gotti Jr. may head to prison because he hasn't paid $220,00 in back taxes.
• The Eldridge Street Synagogue's rose window returns in time for Rosh Hashanah.

John Gotti Jr., son of Gambino mob boss John Gotti and long suspected of still being in the mob (even though his last trial ended in a mistrial) tells the Post he's moving out of New York because he's a bit cash-strapped. The Post touts his "don-sizing" of his Oyster Bay mansion - we wonder if any mob lore fans will want to buy Gotti's 1.96 acre home. Gotti Jr. said, "We're going to move out east at first [within Long Island so his son can finish high school], and then, in a year, to Florida or South Carolina, where it's cheaper." Watch out, Dirty South!

Is it just Gothamist or does anyone else wish they were selected for jury duty at the United State District Court in Manhattan after reading the NY Times story about dodgeball movie dreams and theft. Judge Shira Scheindlin, the same judge who presided over the most recent John Gotti Jr. trial, ruled that a lawsuit from David Price, a national amateur dodgeball champion, and his writing partner Ashoka Thomas against the makers of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story could go forward.

Should John Gotti Jr.'s nickname be "Teflon Jr."? Because, for the third time in a year, a mistrial has been declared in the federal government's racketeering case against the infamous mob family figure. The jury sent Judge Shira Sheindlin a note saying, "We have been unable to come to a unanimous decision on all counts." From the NY Times:

The hung jury represents a significant loss for the government, which had been intent on convicting Mr. Gotti, not just for his crimes — but because of his notoriety — which has increased after he avoided conviction in the first two trials, which ended in September 2005 and March 2006. The first jury to hear the Gotti case deliberated for eight days and the second for one and a half days.

Continue reading "Gotti Gets Off Again"

-- Speaking of colleges, according to the NYU paper, NYU has achieved "psuedo-ivy" status. Fresh, because we've been telling people we "pseudo-got-into" Harvard for years.

If you have ever thought that the language in The Sopranos or The Godfather or any mob movie was made up, we urge you to read about the secret prison tape of John Gotti Jr. ranting and raving about, oh, wanting to kill his uncles. While Gangland News had these tapes where Gotti complains about uncles Peter and Ricahrd exclusive back in 2004, the NY Times had a short and sweet excerpt:

“I’ve made a pact,” Mr. Gotti told John Ruggiero, a member of the Gambino family, during a September 2003 conversation secretly recorded by the F.B.I. at the federal prison in Ray Brook, N.Y. “I made a pact with myself one night in my bed, on my father’s and brother’s grave. I will beat them down like a two-dollar French hooker.

Continue reading "You Don't Want Junior Gotti Mad at You"

- And some people do get to bear arms in the subway

the way it is in the movies! Here's testimony from Michael DiLeonardo, Gambino loan sharker and star government witness, via the NY Times:

He went to an apartment on Mulberry Street in Little Italy, a few blocks from the Ravenite Social Club, home base of the Gambino family. There he waited in a room with four other men, including John A. Gotti, the son of the family boss, to be inducted as "made men" into the family.

Continue reading "Showing Up Gotti"

- Derek Jeter, the product of an interracial marriage, gets hate mail for his interracial dating habits

After being told to keep working through their impasse, the jury for the trial of John Gotti Jr. told the judge they reached a deadlock, and Judge Shira Scheindlin declared a mistrial. Gotti, son of the infamous John Gotti, was acquitted of racketerring charges but jurors didn't know what to make of kidnapping charges - the kidnapping in question being of Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa (when jurors heard testimony of the kidnapping, they were laughing); Gotti and his lawyer were stunned and cried - who says mob men don't show their emotions? Sliwa, who testified against Gotti, says, "I am a dead man walking." Probably, but Gothamist imagines the feds will try to half-heartedly protect him. And Gotti can't be so stupid as to try to put out another hit on him...can he?

- The two teenage girls who died on East Houston Street a week and a half ago died of heroin-and-cocaine overdoses

- Check out this weekend's subway service advisories; Cobble Hill hipsters, you're screwed with the Manhattan bound service.

The stories coming out of the courthouse where lawyers are trying to select jurors for John Gotti Jr.'s trial continue to be amazing. Apparently, the potential jurors have been less than smart, with Judge Scheindlin saying about one juror, "He wasn't the brightest bulb." And then Gotti's lawyer said, "We've had that a lot." There there was the juror, a "self-taught criminologist," who collected gangster memorabilia - he got bumped. Judge Scheindlin has been upset because on the questionnaire, potential jurors are asked to list three people in the history of the world they admire...and many people listed no one, arguing, "I'm not into that. I'm a working person. That's pretty much it."