SPRINGFIELD, Mo., June 10 (UPI) -- John Gotti, the former head of the Gambino crime family who was serving a life sentence for murder, racketeering and conspiracy, died Monday in a maximum-security hospital in Springfield, Mo., from complications associated with cancer, according to federal officials. Gotti was 61.
Known as "Dapper Don" because of his impeccably tailored $2,000 designer suits, Gotti was once considered to be the country's top mobster.
He was also known as "Teflon Don" because of his ability to beat every case federal prosecutors brought against him as crime boss, until his under boss, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, testified against him and in 19 other organized crime trials.
Gotti was convicted in 1992 on all 14 counts against him, including murder, conspiracy, racketeering and tax evasion, and was imprisoned at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Ill., where he spent 21 hours a day in a 6-by-8-foot cell.
He developed throat cancer in 1998. In January, he was transferred to a prison hospital in Springfield, Mo.
Gotti rose from the relative obscurity of being a small-time Gambino crew chief to boss of the nation's most powerful crime family in what some have described as a preemptive strike against the top mobster in New York City.
As he watched from a car a block away, three of his triggermen in trench coats gunned down Paul "Big Paul" Castellano in December 1985, at the height of rush hour outside a Manhattan steakhouse.
In the following weeks, mobsters were observed holding umbrellas for Gotti, and kissing him in a display of respect reserved for the boss of bosses, federal authorities said.
His brother Gene and five others were accused of racketeering and conspiracy charges stemming from their days in a violent Gambino wrecking crew. They each faced 40 years in prison. All seven were acquitted on March 13, 1987 by a jury.
The verdict gave Gotti an air of invincibility. He returned triumphant to his modest home in the predominantly Italian, middle-class section of Howard Beach in Queens, N.Y., and was feted as a neighborhood hero. It was his second courtroom victory in less than a year.
Only months earlier, a refrigerator mechanic who told police in 1984 that Gotti beat him up and stole his $300 paycheck, suddenly became silent when asked to testify against Gotti. Prosecutors said he lost his memory when he learned of Gotti's exulted status in the Gambino crime family and the barrel-chested mobster went free.
Gotti came a long way from the middle-class Brooklyn neighborhood of New York where he was born on Oct. 27, 1940, the eldest of five sons of John and Fannie Gotti. He dropped out of high school at age 16.
In his early years, Gotti belonged to the Fulton-Rockaway gang whose members dressed in purple or black outfits, officials said. He hung out in poolrooms, placing bets.
Soon after his first arrest on burglary charges in 1958, Gotti allegedly became involved in organized crime. Law enforcement officials said his duties as a gangster involved him in gambling, hijacking and killing.
He served a year in prison in 1966 for unlawful entry and three years, beginning in 1967, for hijacking two trucks from John F. Kennedy International Airport. He also was sentenced to two years starting in 1975 for trying to kill a man thought to have kidnapped Carlo Gambino's son.
It was the latter crime that earned him formal membership in the Gambino crime family.
The Gambino family named for founder Carlo Gambino was loosely portrayed in Mario Puzo's novel, "The Godfather," later made into an Oscar-winning movie.
Gotti, officially a salesman for a plumbing firm, typified the Hollywood image of a rough-and-tumble mobster.
He was said to be an incurable flirt who held doors for women, including the federal prosecutor who tried to convict him of running a racket that dealt in loan-sharking, hijacking and murder.
At the family home in Howard Beach, Queens, the Gottis raised five children.
Gotti was devastated when one son, Frank, died on March 18, 1979, when a car driven by a neighbor struck his son's motorbike. The neighbor vanished four months later.
It was alleged that Gotti continued to run the family from prison via his youngest son, John A. "Junior" Gotti Jr.
However, the younger Gotti was convicted in 1999 of bribery, extortion, gambling and fraud, and was sentenced to 70 months and a $1 million fine. He had pleaded guilty to the charges. Had be been convicted at a trial, he could have faced a prison sentence of 15 years.
Gotti's brother, Peter, was among 17 Gambino family members indicted last week in New York City for racketeering, extortion, wire-fraud, loan sharking, operating illegal gambling businesses, money laundering and witness tampering. He pleaded innocent and is being held without bail.
