John Gotti

The Teflon Don was born October 27, 1940 in New York City. John Gotti and his two brothers became involved in crime from a relatively early age. They were in a gang, and John eventually joined the Gambino crime family, one of New York’s five main mafia hubs.

In John Gotti’s early crime career, he specialized in hijacking trucks, and was eventually convicted of this, serving time for about three years. John married Victoria DiGiorgio and they had several children. Although providing for his family financially, John was not a loving father or husband, beating his wife and children on occasion.

While in the mafia, John Gotti ran a fencing operation out of John F Kennedy International airport, then known as Idlewild airport. He advanced upward through the mafia, becoming a caporegime, which is a head or crew boss with a group of mafia soldiers under him. As a mafia head, John was brutal and threatening to his underlings. Once, when failing to receive the respect he thought he deserved, John threatened to blow up an underling’s house. This was somewhat of a throwback to old style mob bosses.

John had a love of media attention and a marked lack of trying to hide his criminal activities. The tabloids loved him and he was known as the “Dapper Don” for his style and ability to dress well.

Although police and FBI knew John was up to his neck in crime, they couldn’t pin anything on him that would stick. They tailed him and bugged his house in an attempt to find substantial evidence. Police were actually listening in on the conversation in which Gotti threatened his underling.

John Favara, not in the mafia, but a friend of the Gottis accidentally struck and killed John’s son Frank, as the boy was riding his bicycle. Favara disappeared and was not seen again. The FBI believes he was killed and possibly dropped into the ocean in a barrel of concrete.

Eventually, John was convicted of murder and various other crimes partly because of mafia boss turned informant Sammy Gravano. In 1992, Gotti was sentenced to life without parole.

While in prison, Gotti contracted throat cancer, from which he eventually died on June 10, 2002.