NEW YORK-
John A. “Junior” Gotti says he’s ready to move on–to the Midwest, to college, to a quiet life–now that a third jury couldn’t reach a verdict in the government’s racketeering case against him.
But whether prosecutors are ready to move on remains to be seen.
After a judge dismissed the jury Wednesday, a weary Gotti looked victorious in his effort to prove he has left behind the Gambino crime family.
“It’s enough now. They got to let go,” Gotti told reporters as he talked at length about wanting to return to a quiet life at his Long Island home with his wife and six children before moving to the Midwest and attending college.
“If they let us alone, I’ll leave. I’ll take my family and I’ll go,” he said.
Gotti became a fixture in U.S. District Court in Manhattan during the past year as the government tried three times to prove he followed in father John Gotti’s footsteps as head of the Gambino crime family.
U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin ended the latest trial after reading a second note from the jury in two days saying it was deadlocked. She told jurors the mistrial was “not your failure” and acknowledged “the case has its difficulties.”
A relieved Gotti hugged his brother Peter and other supporters, then wiped his eyes while sitting at the defense table. He spoke to his wife from the courtroom via cell phone, telling her he was coming home.
“It was a tough one,” Gotti said. “This one drained the life from me.”
In a statement, U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia said prosecutors would tell the court soon how they will proceed in the case.
“We are disappointed by today’s outcome,” he said.
Three anonymous jurors who spoke to reporters afterward said the jury had agreed unanimously that Gotti was responsible for two 1992 attacks on Guardian Angels founder and radio talk show host Curtis Sliwa, including a shooting that nearly killed him.
The finding was not enough to convict him of racketeering because the jury could not agree on whether Gotti had quit the Gambino family by July 1999, a finding that would disqualify prosecutors from bringing the current case because the statute of limitations would have expired. The jurors said eight found he had not quit; four believed he had quit.
Sliwa said he was left with “the most miserable feeling in the world” while Gotti was “the luckiest person in the world” because a clever defense had let him dodge prison.
If convicted, the 42-year-old Gotti faced up to 30 years in prison. He is free on $7 million bail and defense lawyers have asked the judge to eliminate his home detention and electronic surveillance.
In the latest trial, prosecutors tried to prove Gotti was part of a racketeering conspiracy because he has continued to receive mob money and benefits after 1999 from property and other assets he accumulated with proceeds from his crimes.
His defense lawyers say Gotti paid a large fine when he pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge in another case in 1999 and was permitted to keep his assets, regardless of where the money originated.
Gotti’s defense team acknowledged his past life in organized crime, but insisted their client had retired from the Mafia and had no role in the Sliwa attack. Gotti was indicted on the charges in July 2004, just two months before he was to be released from prison on a prior conviction.
Last September, a jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of conviction. The jury in the first trial was divided over whether he had quit the mob.
The trials were meant to resolve the 14-year-old question of whether Gotti ordered two assaults on Sliwa. Sliwa and prosecutors maintained the Gambino family targeted him to halt his daily verbal fusillades against Gotti’s father.
Sliwa testified for a third time, although he was called by the defense at this trial.
According to authorities, the younger Gotti assumed control of the powerful Gambino family after his father’s 1992 conviction on racketeering and murder charges. His father died in prison.
Sliwa said he will continue his on-air attacks on the Gottis “until their reign of terror is over.”
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