Word: gotti
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...major evidence in the Gotti case was provided through a bugging scheme worthy of a James Bond movie. In 1984 Gambino Soldier Dominick Lofaro, 56, was arrested in upstate New York on heroin charges. Facing a 20-year sentence, he agreed to become a Government informant. Investigators wired him with a tiny microphone taped to his chest and a miniature cassette recorder, no bigger than two packs of gum, that fitted into the small of his back without producing a bulge. Equipped with a magnetic switch on a cigarette lighter to activate the recorder, Lofaro coolly discussed Gambino family affairs...
...John Gotti is haunted by the deception of Wilfred ("Willie Boy") Johnson, a Gambino-family associate. Caught carrying $50,000 in a paper bag in 1981, Johnson invited New York City detectives to help themselves to the cash. They charged him with bribery. After that Johnson, who hung out at Gotti's Bergen Hunt and Fish Club, kept the cops posted on how the rising star was progressing. He also suggested where bugs might be placed...
...Bergen Hunt and Fish Club was then the haunt of a smart and sharp young hoodlum named John Gotti. Over the next 15 years, while Giacalone moved from college to law school to a job at the Justice Department, Gotti was moving up through the ranks of the Mafia. Four years ago, their paths crossed more decisively. Giacalone had become an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, and Gotti was a feared capo in the Gambino family who ruthlessly ran his empire from the same red brick building on 101st Avenue. Giacalone had just successfully prosecuted four men for two armored...
...next four years Diane Giacalone pieced together exactly what those men loitering in front of that red brick building did for a living. In doing so, she painstakingly constructed against John Gotti and nine others a case involving loan sharking, gambling, hijacking and murder. Today, in an unembellished chamber at federal court in Brooklyn, Gotti and Giacalone sit across from each other, about the same distance apart as the width of 101st Avenue...
...urging of Giacalone, Gotti has been denied bail and currently resides in the Metropolitan Correctional Center. It is a comedown for the flashy, fastidious man who likes driving his black Mercedes 450 SL, sampling the delicately prepared pastas at little-known Italian restaurants, and playing the courtly gentleman in his double-breasted $1,800 suits. At 45, Gotti -- his once lean figure having become stocky but his imperious gaze just as chilling -- is a mixture of the old and new Mafia styles. Like the traditional mobsters, he does not flinch at the promiscuous use of violence; informers report...