Confidant Says Gotti Planned Mafia Murder

John Gotti’s closest confidant and hand-picked successor told a federal court jury Monday that his former boss headed the nation’s most powerful organized crime family and planned the assassination of his predecessor, Paul Castellano.

Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano, the former underboss of the Gambino crime family, said he sat in a car with Gotti less than a block from the mid-Manhattan steak house where Castellano and his bodyguard, Thomas Bilotti, were slain in a barrage of gunfire on Dec. 16, 1985.

Their job was to be backup shooters in case the primary three-man hit team failed, said Gravano, who has admitted to 19 murders during his long crime career.

Gravano, a dark-haired, gravely voiced mob leader, is the government’s chief witness against Gotti. Although he at times had to be asked to speak louder, his testimony held the Brooklyn federal courtroom spellbound. As his chief accuser broke the Mafia’s code of silence, Gotti smiled coldly and glared.

Prosecutors, who have failed on three previous occasions to convict Gotti, believe Gravano’s testimony, as well as wiretap evidence, gives them their strongest case yet.

Prosecutors believe that Gotti masterminded the assassination in order to take over as head of the crime family. There was also friction between Gotti and Castellano over narcotics dealing by some members of Gotti’s “crew” that Castellano had not authorized. Gravano, under careful questioning by Assistant U.S. Atty. John Gleason, admitted he rose to underboss of the crime family after first becoming a “made member” in 1976.

“John was the boss,” Gravano told the jury.

In meticulous detail, Gravano, 46, told of planning sessions and delicate negotiations with other New York City organized crime families leading up to the slaying of Castellano and Bilotti. The night before the slaying, Gravano said, Gotti took part in a planning meeting in the offices of a Brooklyn construction company Gravano owned.

“We discussed we were going on a piece of work the following day,” Gravano said, explaining that in mob language, murder was known as “a piece of work” or to “wack somebody out.”

“We discussed who the shooters would be, what positions different people would take. . . . The shooters would be right outside of Sparks (Steak House).”

The next day, Gravano said, the killers, armed with weapons as well as walkie-talkies, met in a Manhattan park. Then, and only then, were some of the killers and getaway drivers told exactly who their targets were--that “Paul and Frankie Bilotti were going.”

Coldly, Gravano detailed the anatomy of the assassination: Gunmen were stationed across East 46th Street from Sparks Steak House. Others were ready down the block, in the direction of 2nd Avenue.

“Me and John got in the car. We were on the 3rd Avenue side,” Gravano said. “I was a backup shooter. We were all backup shooters. . . . We had Sparks Steak House sandwiched in.”

Castellano and his bodyguard were killed just as they emerged from their car in front of the restaurant.

The testimony was the most damaging so far against Gotti, 51, and his co-defendant, Paul Locascio, 59, who were arrested in December, 1990, and charged with a series of crimes including murders, conspiracy to murder, racketeering, loan-sharking, tax evasion and extortion. If convicted, both men face life in prison without parole.

Gravano was arrested with Gotti and Locascio, but he became a government witness in November. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison without parole.

“I agreed to admit all the crimes I ever committed,” Gravano told the jury. With that, Gotti smiled.

As the jury sat riveted, Gravano described in rich detail his own initiation into the mob. He said he first began a life of crime in 1966, but it wasn’t until 10 years later that he became a “made member” of the Gambino family at a ceremony with other candidates.

Gravano said he was told to dress up and “you go to somebody’s house. . . . There were a few other people I was told to wait upstairs.”

One by one, the candidates were brought down to face Castellano and other Gambino family leaders.

“I was told to sit down next to Paul,” Gravano said. “I sat down next to Paul. He asked me if I knew what I was doing there. He asked me to look around. He told me this was a society, and he was about to induct me as a made member in the Gambino family. He asked me a few questions. One of the last questions was, would I kill if he asked me to?”

Castellano then pricked blood from Gravano’s trigger finger and put a drop on a picture of a saint, the witness said.

“Someone lit the saint on fire,” Gravano continued. “He (Castellano) said if I ever divulge any secrets of this organization, my soul should burn like the saint.”