Like Godfather, Like Son? Gotti Wears Name on Ankle

The priciest jail cell in New York state overlooks Long Island Sound: a $700,000, six-bedroom Colonial with tennis courts, a swimming pool and a boat dock.

Inside, with an electronic bracelet around his ankle, resides its lone inmate: John “Junior” Gotti. The reputed mob boss with the infamous surname landed under house arrest on Oct. 1 after spending nine months in jail.

It was not a pleasant 1998 for 34-year-old Gotti: He was indicted and jailed, nearly went bankrupt, pondered a plea bargain and prison term, learned his father had throat cancer.

The future is not much brighter: Gotti faces trial this spring on an assortment of charges in a high-profile federal mob case. A conviction could mean 20 years in prison.

But Gotti--whose father, known as the “Dapper Don,” ascended to boss of the Gambino crime family after orchestrating the December 1985 murder of “Big Paul” Castellano--is anything but down, according to his attorney.

“He wants to fight the case and feels he’s going to win,” said attorney Bruce Cutler, who helped Gotti’s father win three criminal acquittals before a 1992 conviction for murder and racketeering.

“He’s a fighter, like his father,” Cutler said. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

The fruit, authorities say, is just as rotten: Gotti Jr. stands accused of extortion, loan-sharking, phone-card fraud and beating and robbing a drug dealer. The last charge infuriated him: “You have no honor!” he hissed at prosecutors when they accused him of a common street beating.

Honor was always a hot-button issue for the Gotti family. “I’m gonna call ‘em as I see ‘em,” John Sr. once bragged on a government wiretap. “That I gotta do till the day I die.”

But law enforcers say there are differences between father and son: Where John Sr. inspired fear, Junior draws ridicule. Where John Sr. was battle-tested, Junior is inexperienced. And where John Sr. was philanthropic, Junior is greedy.

“The old man really wasn’t that money-conscious,” says ex-FBI agent Bruce Mouw, whose Gambino squad helped jail Gotti Sr. “The money came in, the money went out. The father was more concerned with power and control of people. Junior is just the opposite.”

There are other differences, including at least one in Junior’s favor: his ability to avoid government bugs. Gotti Sr.’s mouth helped land him behind bars; Junior has been more discreet during his six years as boss, authorities say.

The younger Gotti’s image has softened in recent months as he’s spent more time in the public eye. Gangster Gotti--the iron-pumping dumbfella in a designer sweatsuit--is out; Gentleman John, Big Brother John and Papa John are in.

Gotti, appearing more collegiate than criminal, attended recent court sessions wearing wire-rimmed glasses and carrying a briefcase. Before one hearing, he stopped to help a woman pick up $10 worth of change from the courthouse floor.

Gotti’s mother, in an unprecedented phone call to the Daily News, told the tabloid, “I wish every mother in America had a son like my son.”

“My son is no boss,” she insisted. “Don’t you think I would know it? He’s my son.”

When Gotti was finally released to home arrest on $10-million bail, posted by family friends and his sister Victoria Gotti, the best-selling novelist, his lawyers detailed a happy family reunion. Gotti and his wife of eight years, Kim, have four children: Frank, 8; Nicolette, 7; John, 6; and Peter, 4.

Neighbors say he was a fixture at his kids’ school events, and young Gotti has even gone the extra mile for his family at Christmastime. In 1996, he visited a Toys R Us in Queens and came up with the year’s toughest toy find: Tickle Me Elmo dolls.

Dumb luck, his lawyer said. Store workers took an oath of omerta, opting not to comment on the purchase.

So who is Junior Gotti?

John A. Gotti--he’s not actually a junior, since dad is John J.--was born Feb. 14, 1964, his parents’ first child. After graduating from a military high school outside New York City in 1982, he apparently went into the family business.

Law enforcement officials say that business was the mob, although his father claimed to be a plumbing-supplies salesman. Junior owns a trucking company where he often puts in 14-hour days, attorney Cutler has said.

There were minor dust-ups with the law: A 1985 arrest for slugging an off-duty policeman, a driver’s license suspension in 1986.

“John [Sr.] had his run-ins too,” Mouw says. “So he’s a chip off the old block there.”

Junior allegedly became a made man in a Christmas 1988 ceremony at his dad’s Little Italy home-away-from-home, the Ravenite Social Club--an induction later recounted by Sammy “The Bull” Gravano in the book “Underboss.”

A year later, young Gotti was arrested in a brawl outside a Long Island nightclub. A grand jury refused to indict him when witnesses said they could not identify the assailants.

When the “Dapper Don” went away for life, authorities say his son stepped up to run the family.

“Nepotism at its finest,” says Mouw.

Although his alleged time atop the Gambinos is just one year short of his father’s reign, the younger Gotti has never earned the respect of mob experts.

“A joke,” Ronald Goldstock, ex-head of the New York State Organized Crime Task Force, observed last year.

“Gotti was a thug, but not as stupid as the son,” mob expert Howard Abadinsky agreed recently.

There are signs that Junior hasn’t grown up. In April 1997, he was arrested for hassling a pair of undercover narcotics cops. The charges were dropped, but the idea remained unbelievable--imagine Carlo Gambino chasing down two NYPD detectives.

Gotti still visits his father for advice. Much as John Sr. denied involvement in the Castellano hit on a government bug, John Jr.--aware that his conversation was being taped--pleaded innocent to shaking down the Manhattan strip club Scores.

“Supposedly it’s a big men’s club. . . . All the celebrities go there,” John Jr. told his father in a Nov. 23, 1996, talk at Marion. “I’ve never been there in my life.”

John Sr. responded with a good word for his eldest: “What a joke, what a joke, what a joke. . . . There’s no such thing as a mob.”

In January 1998, Gotti finally hit the legal big leagues when his indictment was announced. He was jailed until his attorneys convinced a judge that he deserved bail.

Prosecutors, repeating a technique used against Gotti Sr. and other mobsters, were expected to use turncoat Mafiosi to testify against the son.

Freedom has not come cheap for Gotti. He acknowledged borrowing $125,000 from his brother-in-law, Carmine Agnello, to cover his staggering legal bills. Federal authorities tied up his income-producing properties, alleging they were purchased with mob-tainted money.

At home, Gotti has little privacy. His phones are tapped and he can’t leave the house except for medical emergencies. He is not permitted to own a beeper or a cell phone.

On Christmas Day, with the electronic bracelet on his ankle, Gotti hosted a family celebration. By Christmas 1999, he could be behind bars again. Even if he beats the pending case, Gotti will remain under scrutiny by law enforcement.

It took seven years and four cases, but they finally convicted his father.

“If you want to be the boss of a family,” Mouw says, “you have to pay the price.”