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John Gotti Pleads Not Guilty To Racketeering Charges

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 29, 2008

Updated: 08/29/2008 02:04 am

TAMPA - John "Junior" Gotti "is definitely not a mobster," his sister told reporters after his arraignment Thursday in U.S. District Court.

Victoria Gotti said she is angry that federal prosecutors keep hounding her brother long after he walked away from the mob and after they repeatedly failed to gain convictions in New York.

Gotti's attorney, Charles Carnesi, said his client walked away from that life 10 years ago.

Speaking on the steps of the federal courthouse on Florida Avenue, Victoria Gotti, who stars in a television reality show called "Growing Up Gotti," said prosecutors won't give up their pursuit of her brother because, "he's Gotti. If they could pull his father out of that grave three more times and try his bones and whatever debris is left of him, they would. It's a vendetta. It's a personal thing."

Moments earlier, her brother had entered a not guilty plea to racketeering and conspiracy charges handed up by a federal grand jury in Tampa. The indictment also accuses Gotti of participating in Gambino family-related slayings of three men in New York: George Grosso, who was killed Dec. 20, 1988, in Queens; Louis DiBono, killed Oct. 4, 1990, in the World Trade Center parking garage; and Bruce John Gotterup, killed Nov. 20, 1991, at Rockaway Beach & Boardwalk in Queens. Gotti also is charged with trafficking in cocaine.

During a brief hearing, U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Jenkins chided Gotti's New York attorneys for failing to file the proper paperwork to practice in the Tampa federal courthouse, though they repeatedly had been warned.

Jenkins set the case for an October trial before U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday. She recognized that a delay is likely in the complex case.

Gotti's attorneys also said they would be filing a motion to move the case to New York.

Victoria Gotti, wearing a black suit and with one arm in a cast, said her brother doesn't belong in court. "He's changed his life around," she said. "He's done what he's done. He made his admissions. He tried to live like the average Joe."

She said his prosecution is "upsetting to everyone. His presence is missed." She described her brother as a father figure for her children.

Five other men were indicted the same time as Gotti, all accused of a vast racketeering conspiracy dating back to 1983 under the umbrella of the Gambino organized crime family, once headed by Gotti's father, the late John J. Gotti, also known as the "Dapper Don."

Among those indicted at the same time as John "Junior" Gotti was Tampa resident James V. Cadicamo. Victoria Gotti said her brother does not know the other defendants.

"I honestly don't know those people," she said.

Her brother does know another man being prosecuted in Tampa, John Alite, she said. Alite was named in a case brought against a Gambino family captain, Ronald "Ronnie One Arm" Trucchio, in 2006. Trucchio was sentenced to life in prison. Alite, who fled to Latin America as the case was pending, has not been tried.

The current Gambino prosecution stems from the same investigation that resulted in the Trucchio prosecution.

Alite, Victoria Gotti said, "was a bad kid from the word go." She said her brother distanced himself from Alite a long time ago.

A witness in Trucchio's trial, Kevin Bonner, said Alite was John "Junior" Gotti's "right-hand man" in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bonner, who is serving state prison time for 10 bank robberies, is cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of having his prison sentence reduced.

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.

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