Remembering the Dapper Don: John Gotti

John Gotti, the convicted and imprisoned leader of one of New York's fabled organized crime families, has been dead for over five years now. Gotti, who's life of crime started ingloriously at the age of fourteen when he and some friends were caught attempting to rob a cement mixer from a construction site, spent the last decade of his life in federal custody. After being found guily of multiple murder and racketeering counts, Gotti was sentenced to five consecutive life terms; a sentence that was to be served at the Marion Federal Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. As one of the toughest and most secure prisons in the entire country, Marion was built in the 1960's as a maximum security facility designed to house the most incorrigible of offenders. As a high-profile inmate serving multiple life terms, Gotti was on virtual lock down; meaning he was confined to his tiny, isolated, eight-by-ten prison cell for up to 23 hours a day, and he had virtually no physical contact with other inmates. Gotti's sparse cell consisted of a concrete bed and thin mattress, a toilet, a small sink, and a small thirteen-inch black and white television set. Gotti became a voracious reader in prison, and he would help pass the time by reading stacks of fan mail sent to hm or by doing countless push ups in his cell.

Gotti's life of luxury and leisure came to an abrupt end on the day of his arrival at Marion. As the swashbuckling, swaggering "Dapper Don," Gotti was used to dining in the finest of restaurants, drinking thousand dollar bottles of wine, and having an army of sycophants and admirers courting his every step and need. The vain and publicity-conscious Gotti, who was fond of strutting through his Little Italy neighborhood in two-thousand-dollar Brioni suits, went so far as to have a professional barber's chair and sink installed in a back room of his criminal lair - The Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street. Upon his daily arrival to his "social club," Gotti would be supplied with a fresh clothing ensemble picked out by one of many aides: a double-breasted suit, hand-painted silk tie, slacks, silk shirt, and matching handkerchief. He would have a professional barber on hand to administer a daily trim; taking great care to eliminate any stray or errant hair that would otherwise mar Gotti's perfectly coiffed hair.

Upon being dressed for the day and ready to conduct the day's business, Gotti's freshly-washed and waxed Mercedes Benz with the headlight wipers would be pulled up to the front of the Ravenite. Gotti would emerge, escorted by the day's chosen entourage and security detail, and would be gingerly ushered into his waiting carriage. And then it would be off to one of Gotti's many favored haunts: Regine's or DaNoi's or Taormina. Gotti, who never met a camera or a reporter he didn't like, was always ready with a coy smile, a witty remark, or a playful rebuke. Gotti loved attention, and he often would refer to his legion of fans and admirers as "his public"! After once noticing United States Attorney Rudolph Giuliani spying on him from a passing vehicle, Gotti gave Giuliani the " I see you" stare and a little "naughty naughty" finger gesture.

But being a crime boss with a "public" is bound to cause problems in an organization where secrecy and stealth are the keys to success. Being a cime boss like Gotti, who was featured on the cover of Time Magazine and who had countless books written about him, who's ego and vanity seemed to supercede any sense of better judgment and caution, was toppled by his own loose lips and arrogance. After being secretly recorded by law enforcement officials in an upstairs tenement apartment above his Ravenite club boasting about "hits" and murders that he had ordered and discussing mob business, Gotti sealed his own fate. And in the end, Gotti, like so many of his criminal cohorts, died while in federal custody, barely ten years into his life term! He passed away in a prison hospital in Springfield, Illinois, after battling the effects of head and neck cancer for nearly four years.

Loved by many, feared and loathed by many more, Gotti was many things to many people. To the government and federal prosecutors, he was a vicious and ruthless crime boss who was responsible for the deaths of scores of individuals. To his family and friends, he was a loving, generous, and respectful man of honor; a man who never submitted or folded in the face of government prosecution, and a man who, unlike many other organized crime figures who find themselves in a tight jam, never "gave up" or "ratted on" any of his cohorts in exchange for leniency or any special deal. He was convicted and prosecuted and went away to serve his life term with no complaints, no crying. Whether or not you loved him or hated him, Gotti was a great story. In the end, however, he was an unsuccessful and careless crime boss. Dying in federal custody while serving multiple life terms is not the sign of a successful and shrewd crime boss. As Jerry Capeci, an organized crime expert and author, has said, "Gotti was a lousy crime boss but played a great gangster".