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Junior Gotti: Dad "Probably" Involved In Neighbor's Disappearance
By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 9, 2010
Modified Apr 9, 2010
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By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 9, 2010
Modified Apr 9, 2010
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This Sunday, 60 Minutes will air a double-length interview with John Gotti Jr., scion of the infamous Dapper Don/Teflon Don, John Gotti. Gotti Jr. said he'd watch his father and his friends, "I'd go to the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club all the time and I would just watch…they'd be playing cards…hanging out…breaking balls…and laughing and commiserating. And you're right there and you’re saying 'this is where I belong.'" And when he was inducted to the Gambino crime family, his father "looked at me as a street guy, as a knock-around guy, a bounce-around guy like himself. [It was] the proudest moment of my life…because I was slowly becoming like him."
60 Minutes' Steve Kroft also asked Gotti Jr. about the death of his brother. Twelve-year-old Frank Gotti was on his bike when Howard Beach neighbor John Favara fatally struck him with his car. Favara, who was harassed ("murderer" was written on his car, Victoria Gotti hit him with a bat) but didn't move, later disappeared and his body may have been dissolved in a vat of acid by a Gambino soldier. Gotti Jr. believes his father "probably" had something to do with Favara's disappearance: "Knowing John and how he was and how he felt about a lot of things, especially regarding his own children, he probably was."
Gotti Jr., who is free after four mistrials, also discusses how stopped being a loan shark because all his clients went into witness protection and how his father lived by the rules of the street: "You break the rules, you end up in a Dumpster."
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gambino
john gotti
john gotti jr
la cosa nostra
mafia
mob
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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