Mob boss John Gotti dies at 61
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from June 2002.
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New York (AP) - John Gotti, who swaggered, schemed and murdered his way to the pinnacle of organized crime in America only to be toppled by secret FBI tapes and a turncoat mobster's testimony, died at a prison hospital Monday while serving a life sentence, law enforcement sources told The Associated Press. He was 61.
The former Mafia boss died in Springfield, Mo., said the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity. He had suffered from throat cancer and had been moved to the
prison hospital from the maximum-security federal prison in Marion, Ill.
Once known the "Dapper Don" for his fine doublebreasted suits and the "Teflon Don" after a series of acquittals, Gotti was sentenced to life in 1992 for racketeering and six killings. His victims included "Big Paul" Castellano, whom he succeeded as boss of New York's Gambino crime family in 1985.
Gotti reigned for six years as the nation's most high-profile mobster, passing himself off as a plumbing supply
salesman while strutting about in $2,000 Brioni suits and sneering at law enforcers who kept trying to put
him behind bars. Some crime chroniclers called him the most important gangster since Al Capone, a comparison Gotti did not discourage.
When Gotti finally was convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn, James Fox, the FBI agent in charge in New York, declared: "The Teflon is gone. The don is covered with Velcro."
In the end, Gotti's leadership of the Gambinos led to the loss of power and money for the crime family, because his high profile attracted so much attention from prosecutors.
