Word: gotti
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...Mafia's tradition of omerta, the code of silence, is explicit: betray the family and pay with your life. But beginning with the televised confessions of Cosa Nostra Songbird Joseph Valachi in 1963, that code has been repeatedly violated. At the racketeering trial of reputed Mafia Boss John Gotti last week in Brooklyn federal court, omerta suffered one of its rudest shocks...
Federal Judge Eugene Nickerson disclosed that a trusted member of Gotti's Gambino crime family had secretly taped conversations between the capo and his confederates over a 30-month period. The informant, a self-styled former hit man named Dominick Lofaro, was brazen enough to carry a concealed wire right into Gotti's lair, the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park, N.Y. His cooperation with authorities marked the first time that a Mafia "soldier" had ever worked as an informant while on active duty. The intelligence coup, said one New York City police officer, was "like penetrating...
Police and FBI sources say the Lofaro tapes were a consequence of Gotti's ambition to broaden the Gambino family business. Over the objections of former Gambino Boss Paul Castellano, who was gunned down on a crowded Manhattan street last December, authorities say, Gotti urged cronies like Lofaro to get more involved in drug trafficking. Then in 1984 Lofaro was arrested in upstate New York while attempting to sell a kilogram of heroin to an undercover detective...
...turn informant. His arrest was kept secret to prevent his associates from suspecting him, and he was able to return to his New York City haunts without being searched for the hidden wire. From 1984 until last March, Lofaro made more than 50 tapes that include conversations between Gotti and his lieutenants. The tapes, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane Giacalone, provide "direct evidence of John Gotti's role as manager of the gambling enterprise" of the Gambino crime family...
...prison can be hard on a man, and when Gotti finally appeared last week in Brooklyn Federal Court, the "Dapper Don" of the tabloids showed signs of fashion fatigue. No tie. No tan. His graying hair no longer meticulously styled. Only a starched white pocket handkerchief, practically a Gotti trademark, hinted of better days as the alleged head of the Gambino crime family. While attorneys painstakingly questioned prospective jurors, whose names were kept secret for their protection, Gotti suffered another setback: U.S. District Judge Eugene Nickerson ruled that during the trial, the boss could not eat lunch in the courtroom...