Jurors Hear Gotti Brag He Heads Mafia : Gangster: ‘God’s gift to underworld’ on trial for ordering the shooting and wounding of union leader.

Jurors wearing earphones listened today to a tape of John Gotti boasting that he is “boss” of the nation’s most powerful Mafia family and that an admiring gangster called him “God’s gift to the underworld.”

Gotti’s description of his rise to power in the Gambino crime family is contained on some of the 1,001 hours of secretly taped conversations at his alleged Queens headquarters, the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club.

Wearing large black earphones, the jury of seven men and five women in the assault case against Gotti, 49, and Anthony Guerreri, 60, an alleged Gambino soldier, heard the tapes in state Supreme Court in Manhattan. The jurors also were provided with transcripts prepared by the government.

Gotti, wearing a red floral tie, matching pocket square and a black-on-black striped double-breasted suit, also was given a pair of earphones but he declined to wear them.

Gotti is accused of ordering the May 7, 1986, shooting and wounding of a carpenters union leader, John O’Connor. The shooting was meant as a warning to the union, which had trashed a Gambino-linked restaurant in a dispute over the use of non-union labor.

The tapes begin in 1985, when reputed Boss of Bosses Paul Castellano was gunned down outside a Manhattan steakhouse Dec. 16 and Gotti allegedly assumed his throne.

In a Jan. 11, 1986, conversation with an unknown man, Gotti said his recent rise to power left him feeling obligated to socialize with a higher class of people.

“Me and you may socialize, but I can’t socialize with these guys, I can’t bring myself down, I’m a boss, you know what I mean. . . . I gotta isolate myself a little bit,” Gotti said, according to the transcript.

On Jan. 18, 1986, Gotti boasted to another man about the compliments lavished on him by an admiring gangster.

“He says, ‘When they say God’s gift to the underworld you are it,’ ” Gotti bragged.

“He speaks with his heart, he means it, I tell ya somethin’, I love the guy,” Gotti continued.

But apparently not everyone in organized crime revered Gotti and the reputed mob boss decided to demand some respect.

In a Jan. 17, 1986, conversation, Gotti said his underlings had questioned his judgments.

“And they come at me, and they say we’re telling you now, what about this and what about that? Move this guy, are you gonna move us all? I said, ‘Let me tell you fellers something. I’m right in what I just done. I could break every one of you captains right now, and not overstep bounds.’ A new boss does that,” Gotti said, according to the transcript.

Most of the tapes played today were meant to prove that Gotti is the boss of the crime family and has the power to call all the shots for the Gambinos.

Later in the trial, the jury is expected to hear a tape in which Gotti allegedly orders O’Connor shot, saying “Bust him up,” according to prosecutors.