Victoria Gotti, Growing up Gotti!
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As the daughter of a serial killer, Victoria Gotti has done okay for herself: hack novelist, supermarket tabloid scribbler, and, now, star of the A&E reality TV show "Growing Up Gotti." Personally, we don't think much of the program or Gotti and her three mook sons (we're waiting for "Meet the McVeighs" or "At Home with the Attas"). When it comes to watching the Gottis squabble, we prefer to pop in surveillance videotapes made during a two-day family visit to the Illinois penitentiary John Gotti called home (prison officials recorded all visits to the Gambino family boss). During the January 1998 sitdown, an irritable Gotti meets with his brother Peter, Victoria, and her son John, who was 10 at the time and not yet addicted to hair gel. The prison videotapes are so entertaining that we're divvying them up into a limited-run summer series, with new episodes appearing every Monday morning. "Blowing Up Gotti" is brought to you in conjunction with Ganglandnews.com, your one-stop shop for Mafia news (wiseguy expert Jerry Capeci, the site's proprietor, obtained the Gotti tapes). Look for more riveting visiting room vignettes in "Mob Star," a marvelous Gotti bio by Capeci and co-author Gene Mustain.
Victoria Gotti and John Gotti Brother Bill
I know John Gotti's brother. He owns a deli near my home. Bill is a quiet man who is always friendly when he is approached. I can also see the stress in him and the bitterness that he feels because of the treatment of his family, by the press. His brother John Gotti was no doubt a rough character and probably guilty of most of the things he was accused of but I think that Bill believes, as his brother, John Gotti, did, that the authorities gave him cancer while he was in prison. It seems that an awful lot of prisoners acquire cancer in prison. Prisoners like John Gotti are hated by the state. After all John Gotti thumbed his nose at the government and they spent tens of millions of dollars trying to convict John Gotti who became known as "The Teflon Don" the leader of the Gambino crime family. Why should they his keep for life. Yes, there are criminals in all strata of society!Victoria Gotti and Carmine Agnello
"We're not animals," Victoria declares, recalling how then-husband Carmine Agnello--who's now serving nine years for racketeering--behaved like one when dealing with a kindergarten matter involving son Frank. The Dapper Don says his daughter and grandsons could avoid the hassles associated with being a Gotti by using Carmine's last name. "You should stay off television. You should stay off the book covers. You should use Victoria Agnello and they won't know who the kids are and they won't be forced with this problem." Yeah, right.Victoria Gotti Trouble at school
John Gotti criticizes daughter Victoria's handling of a problem her son encountered at school. Seems that after a classmate slurred Little John, accusing the kid (imagine!) of being a tyro wiseguy, Victoria had a polite conversation with the kid's mother to express her displeasure. Which was the wrong way to handle things, according to the imprisoned killer, who equates such civility to acting like a "rat" or a Jew. Instead, Gotti tells his daughter Victoria Gotti should have instilled fear into the young troublemaker's mother by invoking her notorious daddy and threatening to--at least--cut the boy's tongue out.Victoria Gotti grandfather
Despite his grandfather wanting him to pursue a legal career, little John says he'd rather be an athlete. The Dapper Don, however, doesn't want anyone in his family leading the degenerate life of a baseball or basketball player. Bristling, the lil' wiseguy announces that he'll instead opt for a less glamorous career. That sass doesn't sit well with the incarcerated hoodlum, who threatens the kid with bodily harm and tosses him from the visiting room. Raging at the child's bad attitude, Gotti blames his own wife Victoria: "That shit comes from your fucking mother, not from me," he tells his daughter.-- Kip Addotta
Victoria Gotti and father John Gotti
John Gotti was born in New York City on 27 October 1940 as the 5th of 13 children of a low-earning construction worker and his wife.Victoria Gotti and Victoria Gotti's father John in Brooklyn
When Gotti was in fourth grade his family moved from the South Bronx, then a working-class area of apartment complexes, to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. At the age of 16, he dropped out of high school and became a full-time member of the Fulton-Rockaway Boys street gang. A year later, a gang fight led to his first arrest. Charged with disorderly conduct the case was eventually dismissed. More arrests followed for burglary, disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly when he got caught in a raid on a gambling joint; but again without serious consequences. He received a $200 fine and a 60-day suspended sentence.Victoria Gotti and Victoria Gotti's father John Gotti garment presser
John Gotti remained a novice at crime and was forced to take on a legitimate job operating a garment-pressing machine in a Brooklyn coat factory. He met Victoria DiGiorgio, the daughter of a sanitation worker, who had dropped out of high school in her senior year. They had their first child in 1961, soon to be followed by two more children after their wedding in 1962. In the meantime John Gotti had begun work as a truck driver's helper, a job which allowed him to learn how to value goods and how shippers and warehouses operated.Victoria Gotti father John Gotti jail term
John Gotti served his first jail term, 20 days for being apprehended in a stolen car, in 1963. Three years later, in 1966, he spent several months in jail after pleading guilty to attempted theft which cost him his job with the trucking company. Without legitimate employment, John Gotti, at the age of 26, became a professional hijacker. He operated out of a social club, the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, under the tutelage of Carmine and Daniel Fatico, two adult-gang members of the Rockaway Boys and connected to the Gambino crime family. In 1969, Gotti, by now the father of four children, was sent away to Lewisburg federal penitentiary to serve a four year sentence for cargo theft at JFK international airport. After his release, and after Carmine Fatico was indicted on loan-sharking charges, John Gotti, at age 31, became acting captain of the Bergin crew, even though he was not yet formally inducted into Cosa Nostra. He reported to Neil Dellacroce, and, when Dellacroce went behind bars, directly to family boss Carlo Gambino himself. At that time, Gotti's financial situation had improved. He had acquired interests in a motel and a Chinese restaurant, he was the hidden owner of a Queens disco and he ran gambling and loan-sharking operations.Victoria Gotti father John Gotti Murder James McBratney
In 1973 Gotti participated in the Murder of James McBratney, the member of a gang that specialized in robbing and kidnapping bookmakers and loan sharks. The Murder was ordered after a nephew of Carlo Gambino's had been kidnapped and found dead. Taking part in the McBratney killing eventually meant for Gotti another two years in prison, but it also made him eligible for Cosa Nostra membership. After Carlo Gambino died, after 'the books were opened' and after serving his time for the McBratney Murder, John Gotti was 'made' in 1977.Victoria Gotti father John Gotti Bergin social club
In the neighborhood around 101st Avenue in Ozone Park, where the Bergin social club was now located, Gotti gradually became a celebrity: some residents began saluting him by alerting the club to the presence of undercover detectives. While his income increased - he was said to have $100,000 in loans 'on the street' - Gotti's gambling became worse, losing big at the track and on sports contests. Members of his crew were less well off in the first place, they could not even afford to play the daily number. Gotti cut back on his gambling only after Frank Guidici, who ran the Bergin bookmaking operation, complained he wasn't making any money because he had to cover Gotti's personal losses with other bookmakers.Victoria Gotti father John Gotti son Frank
On a spring day in 1980, Gotti's youngest son, Frank, was killed by a neighbor in a traffic accident. Four months later, the neighbor, John Favara, disappeared without a trace. According to an informant, Gotti had not initially planned to take revenge, but changed his mind when he was told that Favara had allegedly been speeding and had jumped a stop sign before striking the boy.Victoria Gotti father John Gotti FBI
In early 1982 the FBI launched an investigation into drug trafficking that involved as key players brother Gene Gotti and John Gotti's close friend since Rockaway Boys days Angelo Ruggiero. Bugs were planted in Ruggiero's house and produced a wealth of evidence. Although John Gotti was not directly implicated on tape and consequently was not indicted along with Gene Gotti, Angelo Ruggiero and others linked to the Bergin crew, he was on the spot as far as Paul Castellano, the new boss of the Gambino family, was concerned. He felt that Gotti was either involved and thus had violated the Cosa Nostra ban on drug trafficking, or he had failed to control his crew. The conflict between Castellano and Gotti's faction, under the leadership of Neil Dellacroce, escalated when Castellano unsuccessfully tried to pressure Ruggiero into turning over the incriminating surveillance transcripts he needed to prepare his own defense in the upcoming Commission trial, a RICO case directed against the entire leadership of New York's five Cosa Nostra families. Paul Castellano and his newly appointed underboss Thomas Bilotti were Murdered on 16 December 1985. The double Murder was orchestrated by John Gotti and Sammy Gravano who soon thereafter would become boss and consigliere, respectively, of the Gambino family.Victoria Gotti father John Gotti indictment
In the meantime John Gotti had legal problems of his own. In 1984 a grand jury returned an indictment against Gotti on felony assault and theft charges a few days after he had a run-in with a repairman over a double-parked car. In March of 1985 he was indicted on RICO charges. The predicate offenses included two hijackings and the McBratney Murder. The prosecution, lead by young Diane Giacalone, relied heavily on testimony from turncoats who the defense under the leadership of Bruce Cutler vigorously tried to discredit. While the government's case was assessed to be weak from the beginning, it was doomed when one of the jurors reached out to Gotti and promised to prevent a conviction. In March of 1987, one year after the trial began, the jury found John Gotti 'not guilty' on all counts. In the previous year, Gotti had already been acquitted in the felony assault case after the assaulted repairman declared he could not identify his assailant in the courtroom.Victoria Gotti father John Gotti Teflon Don
The legal victories earned Gotti the nickname "Teflon Don" and boosted his celebrity status. When Gotti visited a resort clubhouse at Williams Island, actor-comedian Eddie Murphy and movie star Sophia Loren reportedly stopped by to say hello and congratulate him.Victoria Gotti father John Gotti boss of the Gambino family
As boss of the Gambino family, Gotti moved his headquarters to the Ravenite social club in lower Manhattan, making himself a target for extensive law enforcement surveillance. By 1989, at least nine men were meeting secretly with agents about Gotti and bugs were planted inside the Ravenite, in the adjacent hallway and in an upstairs apartment where Gotti held conferences with his closest underlings. On the tapes, Gotti admitted approving Murders and discussed the hierarchy of the Gambino family; enough to indict him on racketeering charges again. But he was also caught on tape accusing Sammy Gravano in his absence of hoarding money and opportunity for himself and thus of creating a situation similar to the one that led up to the Murder of Paul Castellano. This prompted Gravano, after he had a chance to review the transcripts following his and Gottis arrest in December 1990, to strike a deal with the prosecution. The RICO trial that began in January of 1992 had no resemblance to its predecessor of 1986. The judge disqualified attorneys Bruce Cutler and Gerald Shargel from representing Gotti and Gravano because they were too involved in the taped evidence to properly defend their clients, and he sequestered the jury, a first in Brooklyn federal court history. With a combination of incriminating tapes and the witness testimony of Sammy Gravano, the prosecution's case proved airtight. After deliberating for only fourteen hours, on April 2, 1992 the jury found Gotti guilty on all counts. Federal guidelines required the judge to give Gotti multiple life terms in prison without chance of parole. Within hours after sentencing on June 23, 1992, John Gotti was on his way to the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. Six years later he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He died on June 10, 2002. Victoria Gotti (born November 27, 1962 in Brooklyn, New York) is a daughter of the late mob boss John Gotti and his wife Victoria (n'e DiGiorgio) Gotti (often referred to as "Victoria Gotti, Sr."), and is the star of Growing Up Gotti on the A&E Network.She has three sons by her ex-husband, jailed mobster Carmine Agnello: Carmine Jr., John, and Frank. Victoria Gotti also had a stillborn daughter, Justine, in 1985.
Victoria has a sister Angela and two brothers, Peter and John A.. Another brother, Frank Gotti, died in 1980 in an automobile accident. John Favara, the driver of the vehicle involved, was abducted and presumed killed in retaliation -- his body has never been found.
Victoria Gotti was a columnist at the New York Post and is currently a columnist for the US tabloid Star, and is the author of several books including:
The Senator's Daughter (1997)
I'll Be Watching You (1998)
Superstar (2000)
She suffers from mitral valve prolapse, a heart disease, and wears a pacemaker. Victoria Gotti has also written about this condition. Victoria Gotti found out Victoria Gotti had breast cancer in November 2004 but did not publicly announce this fact until August 2005. However, after being accused of feigning her illness by some media outlets, Victoria Gotti admitted soon after her initial announcement that Victoria Gotti did not have full-blown cancer but rather had "precancerous cells" present in her breast.
Publicist Matt Rich quit after the breast cancer incident.
In 2006 Gotti published a cookbook, A Hot Italian Dish which contains many Gotti family recipies for Italian food.
The next family member to fall to law enforcement was Carmine Agnello. On one of her visits to see her father in Marion prison, Victoria listened during the taped session as John Gotti asked, "So what's the story with Carmine? Does he get in the backseat of the car and think someone has stolen the steering wheel?" This was only one of the demeaning remarks that showed the disrespect Papa Gotti had for his son-in-law. The events of January 2000 would have little effect in changing Gotti's perception of Agnello.
In April 1999, undercover police from the Auto Crimes Division in Queens set up an undercover sting operation in the Willets Point section near Shea Stadium. The sting was set up to catch thieves selling stolen auto parts. Before the month was out in walked Agnello to inform the undercover operators that they would have to sell him parts at half price in order to stay in business. Rebuked by the officers, Agnello twice attempted to burn down the operation to make his point. He was later indicted and charged with coercion, conspiracy, grand larceny and arson, not to mention restraint of trade and enterprise corruption.
On January 25, 2000, Agnello was taken into custody and held on $10 million dollars bail, prompting his then attorney, Marvyn Kornberg, to utter his famous line, "That's not bail, it's a telephone number." Three Agnello associates were also indicted. Queens' prosecutors moved quickly to freeze Agnello's assets, and they even took the unusual step of having police follow Victoria and surround an ATM machine at a Pathmark store to keep her from withdrawing money from the family accounts.
It seems as though, of all the Gotti family members, the stunningly attractive Victoria is the most intelligent, as well as the most talented and successful. The author of several best-selling novels, Victoria had handled the majority of the arrangements to bail out brother Junior a year earlier, only to see him sent away for six-plus years. Now Victoria Gotti was looking at the prospect of seeing her husband incarcerated for a lengthy prison term.
After hearings, the bail was reduced so that Victoria, using $125,000 from a book advance, could free her husband with the help of friends and family. Agnello's return to his Old Westbury mansion would be short, but certainly not sweet. Information from the investigation alleged that Agnello was having an affair with one of his employees. Despite initial denials by both himself and his wife, the following year Victoria would divorce Agnello, ending 15 years of marriage to the hot-headed 38 year-old mobster.
Meanwhile, on March 7, 2000, Agnello was arrested again. Named in a sweeping federal indictment, FBI agents awakened Agnello one morning and hauled him into a Brooklyn Federal Courthouse where he was charged and held without bail. This time Victoria was unsuccessful in her attempts to bail him out. He remains in jail as of this writing awaiting trial.
The one offspring who seemed to keep a low profile was Peter Gotti, the youngest of the children. In early April 2001, Peter was pulled over at a Rego Park, Queens police sobriety check point, where he was arrested for driving without a license. After spending the night in jail, he was fined $80. The beefy 26 year-old had a long record of traffic violations, and he'd had his license suspended or revoked on four separate occasions. In 1994, he'd allegedly attacked a policeman who was in the act of issuing him a traffic citation.
In the years since John Gotti's 1992 imprisonment, if there has been anything to make the former Teflon Don happy, it would had to have been the arrest of his former underboss Sammy "the Bull" Gravano. On February 24, 2000, Gravano, his wife and two children were arrested in Arizona for their participation in a statewide drug ring that distributed the new designer drug, Ecstasy.
A subsequent indictment was issued against Gravano and his son Gerard in New York, charging them with conspiring with Israeli mobsters to distribute Ecstasy. As a June 4, 2001 trial date approached, Gravano and son agreed to plead guilty. On May 25, Gravano appeared in the same Brooklyn Federal Courthouse where he had testified against John Gotti. While the families of Gravano's Murder victims listened, Sammy told Judge Allyn Ross, "I loaned money to people" who purchased Ecstasy. Gravano was scheduled to be sentenced in September 2001. That same month Gravano goes on trial in Arizona. It's unlikely that within the next fifteen years, the Mafia's most celebrated "rat" will be a free man.
Finally, on April 18, 2001 the New York Daily News announced that John Gotti "has taken a turn for the worse." They reported that the cancer doctors thought had gone away had returned, and now the Dapper Don was suffering from its advanced stages and was expected to last just two months. Gotti's lawyer, Joseph Corozzo, told reporters that John was putting up a brave front. "He's forced to be in a wheelchair," the attorney stated, but emphasized that Gotti "insists on getting about on his own without assistance. John is defiant to the end."
The following week the New York Post reported that the medical facility, the Bureau of Prisons hospital in Springfield, Missouri, had relaxed its regulation and Gotti was allowed to have limited contact with family members. They stated that "he is allowed to hug his wife, his two daughters, his son, and other relatives while prison videotape rolls."
Week from chemotherapy treatments, Gotti was receiving nutrition and medication through intravenous tubes. When not visiting with family members Gotti still spent most of his time in solitary confinement.
On April 25, 2001, Junior Gotti was transferred from Ray Brook prison to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, in the hope that he would testify at the trial of Steve Kaplan, an alleged Gambino Family associate. Kaplan and several others were on trial in federal court in Atlanta on racketeering conspiracy charges, which included loansharking, prostitution, illegal ties to organized crime, credit card fraud and police corruption. The prosecution charged that Kaplan paid Junior Gotti protection money from his high class Gold Club, a popular Atlanta strip club that drew big names athletes.
On May 17, in a private hearing in the judge's chambers, Gotti was asked four questions, to which Junior invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to answer. He was then returned to 23-hour lockdown in the Atlanta prison. The newspapers reported that Gotti would "likely be returned to prison in upstate New York within days." However, nearly a month later, when it was reported that his father was near death, Junior was still en route back to Ray Brook.
The New York Daily News reported on June 13, 2001 that John Gotti had lost so much weight that chemotherapy treatments were discontinued. The following day, it was reported that the former Teflon Don was suffering from pneumonia and that shunts which helped deliver medicine into his body had developed infections around them. An unnamed source said, "It's a matter of weeks." The Gotti family was upset because they were unable to speak with Junior while he was still in transit. Although he was flown to Atlanta in a trip that took a total of five hours, the government was giving him the "scenic route" back, placing him on a prison bus that had stops in three different states along the way.
Against all predictions, Gotti lived almost another entire year, finally passing away June 10, 2002.
