N.Y. Jury Clears Gotti, 6 Others in Mafia Case : Acquittal Positions ‘Dapper Don’ as the Nation’s Most Powerful Mob Figure, Law Officials Allege

A federal court jury acquitted John Gotti, the reputed boss of the nation’s largest and most powerful Mafia family, of all racketeering charges Friday.

The jury also found Gotti’s six co-defendants, all reputed members of the Gambino crime family, not guilty of all charges of participating in an 18-year pattern of organized crime.

After a series of highly publicized convictions of Mafia leaders in recent months, the verdict positions the 46-year-old Gotti as the nation’s most powerful mob figure, law enforcement officials alleged. The leaders of New York’s four other Mafia families are serving lengthy sentences in prison.

‘Shame on Them’

“Shame on them,” Gotti said, pointing at the prosecution table as the Brooklyn courtroom erupted in pandemonium after the verdict was announced. “I’d like to see the verdict on them too.”

The elegantly attired Gotti--known as the “dapper don” for his expensive tailored suits, diamond pinky ring, monogrammed socks and carefully coifed pompadour--grinned and grabbed his lawyer in a bear hug. Gotti later left the courthouse by a back door, avoiding reporters, and was driven away in a black limousine.

“To have John Gotti walk out of jail today is just a tremendous, tremendous feeling,” Gotti’s lawyer, Bruce Cutler, said later at a news conference.

When asked if Gotti was the head of the Gambino crime family, as prosecutors and police repeatedly have asserted, Cutler angrily replied: “Of course not.”

Andrew J. Maloney, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, whose office prosecuted the case, said in a statement that “we are obviously disappointed” by the verdict.

“We live in a country of rules and procedures in our criminal justice system, and the jury has spoken,” he said. “This verdict in no way affects our determination to vigorously pursue those who terrorize our community and violate our laws.”

“We presented the evidence as best we could,” said Diane F. Giacalone, who grew up in the same Queens neighborhood as Gotti and spent years preparing the case as lead prosecutor.

In her closing argument, Giacalone had said of the defendants: “They kill at their pleasure and they corrupt young people to fill their ranks.”

The defendants had been charged with running a racketeering conspiracy that organized murders, truck hijackings, gambling, cigarette smuggling and loan sharking. If convicted, each could have faced 40 years in prison.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for seven days. They sifted through 17,000 pages of testimony from 106 witnesses and hundreds of wiretap tapes produced during the seven-month trial. For their protection, the jurors’ names were not released.

Longtime Boss Slain

Police said Gotti had only headed the Gambino family since Dec. 16, 1985, when the Gambino group’s longtime boss, Paul Castellano, and his top aide were shot to death in front of a mid-Manhattan steak house. In the following weeks, reputed gangsters were observed holding umbrellas for Gotti and kissing him in a display of respect reserved for the boss of bosses, police said.

FBI officials testified that they believed Gotti ordered the Castellano shooting, but no one has been charged. A rival Gambino group leader, Frank DeCicco, was killed in a car bomb explosion last April 13.

Most of the testimony in the case concerned what prosecutors said was Gotti’s earlier role as an obscure mid-echelon Mafia “crew captain” who carried out orders for Aniello Dellacroce, a Gambino family underboss who died of cancer in 1985.

Gotti’s lawyers portrayed him as a hard-working high school dropout, dedicated to his wife, Victoria, and five children, and his job as a salesman for a plumbing company in Queens. But prosecutors described him as a cold-blooded killer who got his start in a Brooklyn street gang whose members dressed in purple or black, and wound up running the Gambino family crime operation from a Queens social club.

Portrayed in ‘Godfather’

The Gambino group, named for its founder, Carlo Gambino, is considered the largest and strongest of the Mafia families. It was loosely portrayed in the Mario Puzo novel, “The Godfather.” When the trial began last September, an Andy Warhol portrait of Gotti ran on the cover of Time magazine.

The verdict was an obvious blow to prosecutors after a series of successful prosecutions that law enforcement officials assert have crippled New York’s five Mafia families, the nation’s largest, and disrupted traditional criminal activities of the 24 Mafia families in the United States.

Eight men, including Anthony Salerno, Anthony Corallo and Carmine Persico--leaders of the Genovese, Lucchese and Colombo crime groups--were convicted in Manhattan on Nov. 19 of participating in a ruling commission of crime families. Philip Rastelli, head of the Bonanno family, and eight others were convicted last Oct. 15 of labor racketeering.

Earlier this month, a former chief of Sicily’s Mafia and 16 other men were convicted in Manhattan of running an international ring that distributed an estimated $1.6-billion worth of heroin, using pizza parlors to disguise drug meetings and money-laundering.

Power Consolidation

Organized-crime experts said they assume the verdict would help Gotti consolidate power.

“He’s clearly the head of the most powerful family,” said one federal official, who asked not to be identified. “What impact that has on other families is open to conjecture. . . . It’s clearly not going to hurt him.”

But Thomas L. Sheer, head of the FBI’s New York City bureau, said the breakup of the Mafia’s ruling commission removed the system that had helped settle disputes and carve out territory for competing mob groups, and as a result, he said, Gotti’s power now may be somewhat limited.

“It’s in no way going to deter our efforts,” Sheer added. “We’re going at a good clip, and we’re getting better every day.”

Bail Revoked

Gotti had been held in jail since May after U.S. District Judge Eugene Nickerson revoked his $1-million bail amid reports that a witness against Gotti in a separate assault case had been threatened.

Cutler, Gotti’s lawyer, said he hoped that the verdict would “signal the end of the abuse of the RICO statutes.” Prosecutors have increasingly used the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law to charge mob figures with a pattern of criminal activity, as opposed to a single criminal act.

Cutler also attacked the use of eight government informants, including several admitted or convicted murderers and thieves, as prosecution witnesses. He said prosecutors had created an “aura of fear” in the courtroom by using an anonymous jury, wiretap recordings and “photographs of people whispering together at weddings.”

“You can’t walk around with that arrogance of power,” he said.

The other men acquitted were Gotti’s brother, Gene, 40; John Carneglia, 42; Wilfred Johnson, 52; Anthony Rampino, 47; Leonard DiMaria, 45, and Nicholas Corozzo, 46. All are from the New York City area.

Times researcher Tony Robinson contributed to this story.