Defector Says Gotti Saw Mob Slaying

By JOHN J. GOLDMAN

March 4, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

NEW YORK —

John Gotti sat behind dark tinted windows in his Lincoln Continental and watched the assassination that propelled him into the leadership of the nation’s most powerful organized crime family, a mobster who used to be his closest confidant testified Tuesday.

Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano told jurors in a tense and hushed courtroom that Paul Castellano and his bodyguard, Thomas Bilotti, in a limousine on the way to their deaths, pulled alongside the car in which he and Gotti were parked on a mid-Manhattan street corner.

“I told John they were right next to us. I got on the walkie-talkie. I told the people at the scene--the shooters,” Gravano said.

Castellano, then head of the Gambino organized crime family, and his bodyguard were murdered in front of the Sparks Steak House on Dec. 16, 1985. Federal prosecutors charge that Gotti masterminded the murders in order to assume the leadership of the Gambino family.

Gravano said he and Gotti drove down the block, pausing for a second in front of the bullet-riddled bodies.

Weeks later in the basement of a Manhattan apartment complex, key members of the Gambino crime family met to elect a new leader.

“We talked a bit. We talked a bit about electing a new boss,” Gravano recalled. “ . . . Everyone around the table nominated John.”

Spectators and jurors sat in the federal courtroom in Brooklyn, their attention riveted, as Gravano described the slayings. FBI agents who had investigated Gotti for years sat in a front row. Just behind them sat friends of Gotti and co-defendant Frank Locascio.

As the government’s chief witness, Gravano has admitted committing 19 murders during a crime career that spanned three decades.

“Did you commit the murder of Paul Castella no?” prosecutor John Gleeson asked Gravano on Tuesday.

“Yes,” Gravano told the assistant U.S. attorney.

“Did you do it with John Gotti?”

“Yes,” Gravano said.

Government tape recordings show that Gotti had picked Gravano, underboss of the Gambino family, to succeed him if he ever went to prison. Gravano, 46, was arrested with Gotti, 51, and Locascio, 59, in December, 1990. They were charged with crimes ranging from murder and conspiracy to racketeering and tax evasion. But last November, Gravano became a federal witness.

In three previous trials, prosecutors had failed to convict Gotti, enhancing his reputation as the “Teflon Don.” Now, with Gravano as their star witness, government lawyers believe they have built the strongest case ever against the reputed mob boss.

After Castellano’s slaying, mobsters associated with Gotti contacted other mob families in New York, assuring them the Gambino family was still intact, Gravano said. They told other family leaders they did not know who killed Castellano but assured them that no further internal warfare would break out.

Prosecutors also brought out testimony on another killing that Gotti allegedly ordered.

In chilling detail, Gravano told how he carried out orders allegedly given by Gotti to murder Robert DiBernardo, a Gambino family associate, who was last seen on June 5, 1986.

Gravano said that Gotti believed DiBernardo was talking too much. “John was steamed. . . . He said it had to be done,” Gravano testified.

DiBernardo was invited to a meeting at Gravano’s office in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn to discuss business. Gravano said he told an associate to get up and get a cup of coffee during the meeting. That was the signal. He said the man went to a cabinet, removed a gun with a silencer and shot DiBernardo twice in the back of the head.

The body was put in the trunk of a car and was never seen again. Gravano said he later talked about the murder with Gotti. “What I did was an order,” Gravano told the court.

The Murder of a Mafia Boss (Southland Edition, A12)

This is the status of some of the Gambino crime family members identified by defector Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano as those who plotted Paul Castellano’s shooting outside Sparks Steak House in 1985:

John Gotti

* Allegedly masterminded the plot.

* Gotti has been in jail for more than a year and is standing trial on charges that would put him in prison for the rest of his life.

Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano

* Says he was with Gotti the night of the shooting.

* He has admitted to charges that would bring a 20-year prison sentence. Upon release he will enter the federal witness protection program.

Frank DeCicco

* Was scheduled to have dinner with Castellano at Sparks.

* DeCicco was killed by a car bomb on April 13, 1986, outside a Brooklyn social club. Police are not sure who planted it.

Joseph (Piney) Armone

* The plotters’ link to Gambino family old-timers.

* He was convicted of racketeering in 1987 and spent the rest of his life in prison. He died last week at 74.