John Gotti's Last Prison Photo: The Not-So-Dapper Don

In a recently released prison photo of the late Mob boss John Gotti taken on October 17, 2001, the once-Dapper Don appears frail and grim, a stark contrast to the flashy and robust aura that he projected as the mighty boss of New York's Gambino crime family.

This photo, recently released to "The Smoking Gun" website via a Freedom of Information Act request, shows the ravaging effects that cancer and incarceration took on the high-profile Gotti. Dressed in a shabby gray sweatshirt, his hair badly receded and cropped short, and with his face lumpy and hollow, Gotti presents a shocking contrast to the figure he cut as the swaggering Queens Mafia Capo who strutted down New York's Little Italy in his $3,000 dollar Brioni suits and matching hand-painted silk ties. Trailed by a large entourage and ushered into the trendiest nightclubs and restaurants, Gotti was a high-profile New York attraction who relished the spotlight.

But Gotti's man-about-town ways ended when he was arrested on the night of December 11, 1990, and jailed pending his trial on racketeering and murder charges. After beating three prior cases brought against him, which led the press to dub him "The Teflon Don," Gotti was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in June 1992. Bereft of his Teflon coating, Gotti was soon shipped out to begin his sentence at the super-max federal prison in Marion, Illinois.

It was at Marion that Gotti was diagnosed with head and neck cancer, and after undergoing several surgeries, and after a brief period of remission, Gotti's cancer returned with a vengeance. He was soon transferred to the Springfield Federal Prison Hospital in Illinois.

Staring blankly into the camera, and with a look of resignation and defeat, Gotti was nearing the end of a life that, in addition to the many law enforcement squabbles and battles, was filled with personal tragedy.

In 1980, Gotti's twelve-year-old son Frank was hit and killed by a motorist while out riding his scooter. John Favara, a Gotti neighbor, was driving home from work and was nearing his house when Frank Gotti darted out in front of his car and was killed instantly. The death was ruled accidental. A few months later, after a series of threatening phone calls, and after vandals spray painted the word "murderer" on his car, John Favara, after finishing his work shift and walking out to his car, was assaulted, thrown into the back of a van, and never seen again.

Although John Gotti was suspected by law enforcement of playing a part in Favara's abduction and disappearance, no charges were ever filed. The John Favara case remains an unsolved mystery.

John Gotti died on June 10, 2002.