As our friend SC has informed us over in the Organized Crime News topic, John "Junior" Gotti's trial ended this morning in a mistrial.

NEW YORK (AFP) - The racketeering and kidnapping case against John "Junior" Gotti, son of the late Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, was declared a mistrial for the third time in New York when jurors failed to agree a verdict.

Two earlier trials on the same charges collapsed in September last year and in March, in both cases also due to hung juries.

"We are disappointed by today's outcome," attorney Michael Garcia said in a statement after the ruling. "We will inform the court in the very near future about how we plan to proceed."

Prosecutors will have to decide whether to drop the charges or go ahead with a fourth trial, court officials said.

The defence camp, however, quickly claimed victory, with a beaming Gotti telling journalists outside the court: "It's time for us all to just move on. It's over... That's it. Now I've got to rebuild my family."

Gotti, 42, is accused of conspiring to kidnap Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, the citizen-run crime-fighting organisation, in 1992.

Sliwa, who was shot three times, says the botched kidnapping was ordered by Gotti in retaliation for his regular radio talk-show denunciations of the Gambinos and John Gotti Senior as "America's number one drug dealer."

While jurors had managed to agree on one of the counts against Gotti related to kidnapping, it was not enough to secure a conviction. The jury remained deadlocked on charges of witness tampering and whether he had left the mob.

After six and a half days of deliberation, the jury on Tuesday had told judge Shira Scheindlin they were deadlocked and again failed to reach a unanimous verdict on Wednesday, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial.

"It's absolutely unbelievable that he escapes justice and gets to walk out of court," Sliwa told journalists. "It actually would have been better if I were dead, believe it or not, because then he would have been held culpable."

Also charged with running the Gambino organisation, Gotti faced a 30-year jail sentence if convicted.

Gotti turned down a deal offered by prosecutors last November that would have seen him plead guilty and serve 10 years in jail after credit for time already served and good behavior.

The elder John Gotti died in prison in 2002, 10 years after he was imprisoned for life on the testimony of one of his lieutenants.


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Does anyone think that the prosecution will take a shot at him for a fourth time?


Don Cardi

Will they take a shot? I dunno...
They might, but I believe the fourth trial will result in the same outcome. I personally do not believe this is just a matter of a "hung" jury, more of a Gambino "bought" jury.
This just goes to show that the New York families, specifically the Gambinos still have alot of power.

I agree with SC, John Jr is The Teflon Don II!

Notice Jr. said to the media now he had to "rebuild his family." Do you think, especially if the charges are dropped, that Jr. will resume his position as Don of the Gambino family?

Ace

Ace -

You really think that he's been able to buy off a juror or jurors in three different trials? I don't know about that, but you never know.

Personally I don't believe that the prosecution will attempt a fourth trial bringing the same charges against him. Actualy he has now done more damage to the government than his father did in the sense that Junior has been charged three different times basically with the same charges. Each time his father avoided prosecution, it was different trials on different charges. Junior has beat the prosecution 3 times, basically being charged with the same crimes each time. That's really a black eye for the government. So now the question is, what makes the government think that their case a fourth time is any stronger than the case they tried to build the first three times? Why would they think that they could convince a whole jury this time of his guilt? They've been unable to unanimously convince 3 different juries on three seperate occasions.

As for him taking back the reins, well I would think that if he is not charged for a fourth time, he's going to move somewhere isolated, and try to stay out of the limelight. Well at least that's what I would do if I beat the government 3 different times on these kinds of charges! But then again, with these Mob guys and their gigantic egos, you never know what they'll do. Maybe he'll take a lesson and not make the same mistake that his father did after being aquitted/mistrialed several times. Each time Gotti Senior beat the government, instead of keeping a low profile, he instead ate up the publicity and loved having his ego fed by the public and the press because they hailed him for beating the government each time. In actuality John Senior's ego and love for the limelight was a slap in the governments face and eventually his ego became his downfall.

You cannot embarress or take on the government time after time. One way or the other, they'll get you sooner or later. Junior should realize this because of what eventually happened to his father.


Funny, I did a search on Junior Gotti postings here when his second trial was declared a mistrial, and this is what some of the members said :

Don Smitty : Turnbull : Plaw : Don Cardi : Maybe the government should have consulted us before bringing Junior to trial for the third time! Hey, I think that we qualify here as Mob Experts!


Don Cardi

I don't know if the Gambino's bought off the jury or not, but it is fun to speculate. Don Cardi, I agree with you that Jr. shouldn't go off and throw block parties like his Pop did when he beat the feds, but Im not to sure if he'll go into hiding. I don't know, like I said its just fun for me to speculate about it.

But then again, John Jr. could take the reigns once again and run the Gambinos in a more private fashion. After all John Sr. is one of the few mob bosses to lead a public life. Maybe Jr. can run things like an old school Don and stay out of the public eye? Who knows....

By the way, did you see the suit Jr. had on today? Very nice, John A. Gotti may not only be Teflon Don part II but he dresses the part of Dapper Don part II as well.

All very interesting!

Ace

I am not trying to paint John Gotti Sr. as a hero. We all know that he was far from being one and that when push comes to shove, he was a criminal. But speaking in the 'parameters' of mobdom, Junior could never ever shine his father's shoes.


Don Cardi

Junior could never ever shine his father's shoes. [/QB][/QUOTE]


I totally agree my friend...


Ace

I am not trying to paint John Gotti Sr. as a hero. We all know that he was far from being one and that when push comes to shove, he was a criminal. But speaking in the 'parameters' of mobdom, Junior could never ever shine his father's shoes.


Don Cardi [/b][/quote]Yes. And not only that, he lacks his father's maniacal drive and indifference to adversity.
Gotti Sr. seemed to enjoy the fact that the government was out to get him. He loved the attention and publicity. Much as he relished the "Teflon Don" image that he got after his acquittals, he accepted his final conviction with good spirit and never gave up thinking of himself as a public figure who "deserved" the "adulation" of his "public." That takes an almost other-worldly level of conceit, ego and arrogance--all of which Junior totally lacks.
I believe that, hung juries or not, the government has fully taken the wind out of Junior's sails (not that there was much to begin with). Even from maximum security, Gotti Sr. was strutting and luxuriating in the fiction that he was still running his family from a public throne. Junior probably wants nothing more than to weld the doors shut on his mansion and play video games. :rolleyes:

John Sr definitely had more charisma and wit about him. Jr.,compared to his father, is very boring. But its like DC said, Jr. is nothing (in the sense of mobdem) compared to his father.

He's still a Gotti (and a Gambino ) though and that's why were speculating about him.

Ace

Starting to look like the prosecution is giving up....


U.S. May Be Ready to Say ‘Enough,’ Lawyers Believe

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Published: September 28, 2006
If there is such a thing as a cost-benefit analysis of the prosecution of John A. Gotti, the ledger is looking pretty red on the government’s side, defense lawyers who were not involved in the Gotti case said yesterday.

The financial cost has probably run into the millions of dollars, the lawyers said, and the public relations cost of prosecuting Mr. Gotti three times and failing to persuade three juries of his guilt may be even bigger.

“There comes a point where anything they do seems vindictive, and by pushing this trial three times, they may be at or very near that point,” Gerald Shargel, whose clients have included Mr. Gotti’s father, John J. Gotti, the late Gambino family don, said yesterday. “It’s the ‘enough already’ principle. I think people stop thinking about the charges in the case, but rather, what are you doing to the guy.”

Heather Tasker, a spokeswoman for the United States attorney in New York, Michael J. Garcia, said she could not estimate the cost of prosecuting Mr. Gotti. “The office doesn’t track and can’t offer cost analyses for individual cases,” she said. “However, we carefully consider the appropriate use of resources when prosecuting cases.”

One former prosecutor, Mark Pomerantz, a partner in the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, said he did not remember ever making a decision to go to trial based on the potential cost. “It’s about doing the right thing,” he said, “and part of doing the right thing is the awareness that your resources are scarce. At some point, you say to yourself, ‘You know what, I gave this one the college try, and it’s time to move on,’ and I think they’re at that time.”

Mr. Pomerantz represented Frank P. Quattrone, the former investment banker, who faced the prospect of a third trial earlier this year after a federal appeals court overturned his 2004 conviction on obstruction of justice charges. Ultimately, the government decided not to try him again.

Besides Mr. Gotti and Mr. Quattrone, among the high-profile defendants who have faced repeat trials are Don King, the boxing promoter, and Charles Schwarz, a former police officer charged with violating the civil rights of Abner Louima, who was sodomized with a broomstick in a police station bathroom..

The longer the prosecution the more the finances favor the government, said Mr. Schwarz’s lawyer, Ronald Fischetti, who represented him without pay for three years.

“You’ve got to understand that the government is all-powerful, they can pour resources into a trial, which makes it next to impossible for the individual defendant to match them,” Mr. Fischetti said. Mr. Fischetti and prosecutors settled in the middle of Mr. Schwarz’s fourth trial. He was sentenced to 60 months and is due out of jail next month, Mr. Fischetti said.

Before this trial, Mr. Gotti complained that he was hard-pressed to pay his lawyers, in part because the government had tied up his assets.

Assistant United States’ attorneys are paid fixed salaries, and they often work more for the experience and the prestige than for the money. Starting salaries range from $76,787 for a lawyer with one to three years of experience to $117,976 for a lawyer with nine years of experience, Mr. Garcia’s office said yesterday.

Victor Hou, the assistant United States attorney who delivered closing arguments in Mr. Gotti’s second and third trials, has been with the office since 2001. Fourth trials are extremely rare, lawyers said. “I think the conventional wisdom among defense lawyers is three strikes and you’re out,” Mr. Pomerantz said.

“If John Gotti were regarded in the same breath as a terrorist, I don’t think anybody in the public would question the devotion of resources to his continued prosecution,” Mr. Pomerantz said.

Yet the prosecutor may be reluctant to send a signal that he is letting up the pressure on organized crime, said James B. Jacobs, a law professor at New York University and an expert on organized crime. “That would end up nullifying all the efforts that have been made in the previous 20 years,” Mr. Jacobs said.

The Gotti case almost certainly does not rank as the most expensive federal prosecution. Prosecutors tried his father repeatedly, albeit not on the same charges every time, before winning a conviction.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/nyregion/28cost.html


Ace