The Day John Gotti Got Beat!

John Gotti, the flamboyant boss of the Gambino Crime Family, spent the last decade of his life in federal custody. After being convicted on multiple murder and racketeering counts, Gotti was sentenced to five consecutive life terms in June 1992. Within days of his sentencing, Gotti was whisked away and flown to Marion, Indiana, home of the maximum-security Marion Federal Penitentiary, a super-max facility where Gotti would serve out his life sentence. At Marion, Gotti would be confined to his small eight-by-ten prison cell for an average of twenty-two hours per day. His sparse cell consisted of a metal bed with a thin mattress, a small wash basin, a thirteen-inch black and white television set, and a small hot plate. Allowed to take periodic exercise breaks outside of his prison cell along the corridor separating the cell tiers, Gotti had extremely limited contact with other inmates. However, on one fateful day in 1996, Gotti had an encounter with a fellow prisoner that dealt the Gotti mystique a harsh blow, and left Gotti with a split lip, a cut face, and a bruised ego.

John Gotti was the boss out on the street, and he was the boss on the inside, or so they said. His reputation for ruthlessness and toughness transcended prison walls; other prisoners would stand in awe of the great Gotti and would give him a wide berth as he swaggered through the prison corridors. Who in their right mind, they said, would want to mess with Gotti? The boss of all bosses of the Italian American Mafia, the "Dapper Don" as the adoring press dubbed him during the height of his reign commanded the same respect in prison that he did out on the streets! John was a tough guy; he had spent more than one stint in prison on his way up the organized crime ladder, and he now had the benefit of entering a prison system not as some lowly, two-bit hoodlum, but as a "super boss," a mafia superstar who's reputation would shield him from any opportunistic and violent prisoners who might try and make a move on Gotti. And that seemed to be the case during the first four years of Gotti's incarceration. Having a notorious reputation and a tremendous amount of street credibility can go a long way in prison, and John's reputation had kept him safe and untouched. But all of that changed on one fateful day late in 1996 when John Gotti met a two-bit bank robber named Walter Johnson.

According to law enforcement sources, Gotti, proving that years in prison had not dulled his sense of self-importance, hurled a racial insult at Walter Johnson, an African American convict from Philadelphia, who had the temerity to not jump out of the way fast enough as Gotti walked by him in an indoor recreation area located between the prison corridors. "Get outta my way you piece of s**t, don't you know who I am?" Gotti allegedly barked, shortly after uttering a racial epithet. Johnson, who obviously did know who Gotti was but didn't much care, scowled and moved just enough for Gotti to pass by. The next day, as Gotti and Johnson were both in the same indoor recreation area, Walter Johnson walked up to Gotti and punched him in the face. Gotti, taken by surprise, fell to the ground as Johnson piled on top of him. Startled prisoners standing nearby neither joined in nor helped. Prison authorities quickly intervened and separated Gotti and his attacker. Gotti was immediately taken to the prison infirmary for treatment, and Johnson was placed in solitary confinement. In an infirmary photograph of Gotti taken about 30 minutes after the attack, Gotti, with clenched teeth and eyes opened wide, appears furious. Asked by the treating physician to describe what exactly had happened, Gotti, true to the mafia's code of silence, replied that he "fell down." But Gotti was furious! And he sought sweet revenge!

When a mafia boss gets assaulted in prison, it's almost a given that there is going to be some sort of a retaliatory strike. Maintaining respect and avenging the slightest insult is of paramount importance in the prison system, especially for a high-profile prisoner like Gotti. And, in John Gotti's case, retaliation couldn't happen fast enough. Isolated from his criminal co-horts and associates in New York, Gotti could not rely upon anyone in his organization - the Gambino Crime Family - for help. Instead, navigating the murky, convoluted waters of the federal prison system, Gotti solicited the help of an influential and powerful prison gang - the Aryan Brotherhood - to even the score against his attacker, Walter Johnson. According to informants, Gotti offered up to $100,000 to the Aryan Brotherhood to kill Johnson. The Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist prison gang, is one of the most powerful and violent gangs in the federal prison system. They have a well-earned reputation for brutality and ruthlessness, and they were all too eager to take Gotti's offer in exchange for ridding the earth of Walter Johnson. However, timing was not on John Gotti's or the Aryan Brotherhood's side; Walter Johnson was paroled and released from prison before the murder contract could be fulfilled. And Gotti, not too long after his prison altercation with Johnson, was diagnosed with head and neck cancer and spent the next few years alternating between his jail cell at Marion and a federal prison hospital in nearby Springfield, Illinois. John Gotti's health would continue to deteriorate, and he would die in June of 2002, never having the satisfaction of seeing Walter Johnson murdered.