Photo: Spencer Platt / Getty Images
The 23 June 1992, mob boss John Gotti, nicknamed the “Teflon Don” after escaping several trials unscathed during the decade of 1980, is sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of 14 charges of conspiracy to commit murder and extortion.
Moments after his sentence was read in federal court in Brooklyn, hundreds of Gotti supporters stormed the building and overturned and smashed cars before being forced back by police backup.
Gotti, born and raised in New York City, became the boss of the powerful Gambino family after boss Paul Castellano was assassinated outside a Manhattan steakhouse in December of 1985.
The gang’s murder, the first in three decades in New York, was arranged by Gotti and his colleague Sammy “the Bull” Gravano.
The Gambino family was known for its illegal narcotics operations, gambling activities, and auto theft. Over the next five years, Gotti rapidly expanded his criminal empire and his family became the most powerful mafia family in the country.
Despite the wide publicity of his criminal activities, Gotti managed to avoid conviction on several occasions, usually through intimidation of witnesses .
In March 1980, a personal tragedy struck the Gotti family when their neighbor John Favara hit Frank Gotti of 12 years, after the boy rode his bike into traffic.
Death ruled accidental, but witnesses say DiGiorgio then attacked Favara with a metal baseball bat and sent him to the hospital. Favara decided not to press charges, according to witnesses, Favara endured four months of death threats until 28 July 1980, the day they hit him on the head and pushed him into a truck, his body was never found. Gotti and his family were vacationing in Florida at the time of their neighbor’s disappearance and denied have knowledge of his whereabouts.
In 1990, however, was charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Paul Castellano, and Gravano agreed to testify against him in federal district court in exchange for a reduced prison sentence.
April 2nd 2002 , John Gotti was found guilty on all counts and the 23 June was sentenced to multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole. While still in prison, Gotti died of throat cancer on 12 June 2002, at a medical facility for federal prisoners in Springfield.
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