(Originally published by the Daily News on April 3, 1992. This story was written by Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci.)
With stunning swiftness, a jury brought down the curtain on Godfather-Part IV yesterday.
After three courtroom victories in six years, John Gotti’s swaggering reign as the so-called Teflon Don came to a crushing end in an electrified Brooklyn courtroom.
“The Teflon is gone,” said the exultant New York FBI boss, Jim Fox. “The Don is covered with Velcro.”
After deliberating only 14 hours over a day and a half, the seven-man, five-woman jury found Gotti guilty on all 13 counts in the indictment and on each of 12 crimes recharged under the two racketeering counts.
The verdict means that barring a successful appeal, the 51-year-old boss of the nation’s largest Mafia family will die in prison.
Gotti will remain in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan until sentencing June 23.
When the jury forewoman announced that the government had “proven” the first racketeering crime, the man who became the most infamous gangster since Al Capone rocked slightly back in his chair with a taut smile of resignation.
Rise and fall
The first “proven” crime was the 1985 murder of former Gambino crime family boss Paul Castellano outside Sparks Steak House in Manhattan, meaning that the jury had decided that just as Gotti rose to power with Castellano’s murder he should now fall because of it.
As the forewoman continued to call out the verdicts that would be the nails for Gotti’s coffin, Gotti turned to a defense attorney, rubbed his back affectionately and said, “Don’t worry, the fight’s not over.”
In the front row of spectators, Gotti’s supporters shook their heads with disbelief as it became apparent the jury had completely lowered the boom on their leader.
Besides racketeering, Gotti and top lieutenant Frank (Frankie Loc) LoCascio, 59, were charged with murder conspiracy, illegal gambling, loansharking, obstruction of justice, bribery of a public official and tax fraud.
When it became clear that LoCascio was going down on all but the gambling count, his son Salvatore said loudly enough for the jury to hear, “Where’s the evidence? Didn’t you listen to the case? It’s a fix.”
As Salvatore LoCascio and other Gotti stalwarts squirmed in their seats, Gotti looked at them and gestured, putting his right forefinger to his mouth and wagging it.
At the prosecution table, lead Prosecutor John Gleeson – the subject of much Gotti vilification throughout the dramatic seven week trial – remained impassive.
Gleeson was co-prosecutor when Gotti won a racketeering case in the same courthouse in 1987. At a news conference with Fox and Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Andrew Maloney, he said, “At that moment, we said the jury had spoken. We say it again today.”
Fox said that as a result of yesterday’s verdicts, the government has quickened organized crime’s decline.
Fox added: “Gotti was acquitted, it would have given a shot in the arm to organized crime throughout the U.S. and he would have achieved the status that not even Al Capone had achieved.”
Gotti and the defense attorneys were stunned when the jurors sent word out at 1 p.m. that they had reached a verdict.
“We were anticipating they would take more time, based, on the issues we presented that they appeared to understand during our summations,” said Gotti’s crestfallen lead attorney, Albert Krieger, who plans an appeal.
After Brooklyn Federal Judge I. Leo Glasser polled the jurors, he excused them.
Gotti dressed in a charcoal, double-breasted suit white-on-white shirt and floral tie, rose and shook his hands with his attorneys. He kissed Krieger’s wife, Irene, and waved and smiled at supporters – who for the first time, did not include his brother Peter.
Peter Gotti, after learning the jury had reached a verdict so quickly, left the courthouse. “That told him he didn’t have to be here,” said Jack D’Amico, a Gambino capo who stayed for the verdict.
“John was classy to the end,” D’Amico added. “When you’re born round, you don’t come out square.”
After waving to his other supporters, Gotti was led out of the courtroom by marshals. On his way out, LoCascio, who, along with Gotti, faces life behind bars with no parole, said, “We’ll be all right.”
For LoCascio, the No. 3 man in the once all-powerful Gambino family, the jury’s verdict was contradictory. Under the racketeering count, it found him guilty of helping Gotti run a Queens gambling operation.
However, when the same crime was charged as a separate count the jury found him not guilty.
Krieger said Gotti feels he was “deprived of putting on a defense” and was grossly prejudiced by the fact the jury was sequestered.”
He said Gotti was most concerned that the jury had found Gotti’s ex-underboss, star witness Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano, credible.
Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Andrew Maloney acknowledged that Gravano, who, after entering a plea-bargain deal, admitted to 19 murders, “brought baggage to the witness stand but we believed he was telling the truth.”
