A 1970s picture showing Frank Sinatra with a collection of mobsters in the largest US mafia family was entered into evidence yesterday in the racketeering retrial of John "Junior" Gotti.
The photograph was introduced by Assistant US Attorney Michael McGovern as the prosecutor questioned Gotti's one-time closest confidant, Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo. DiLeonardo, considered a key prosecution witness, took the stand in New York City a day after the government in its opening statement promised to uncloak the mob of the romanticised image some people possess of it.
Yet McGovern introduced the photograph showing Sinatra with former Gambino crime family head Carlos Gambino, who led the family until he died in 1976.
DiLeonardo, who said he was inducted into the Gambino family with Gotti on Christmas Eve 1988, said Gotti was put in charge but told to keep a low profile after his father was sent to prison in 1992, where he died a decade later.
DiLeonardo estimated Gotti received at least $100,000 from an extortion of a strip club, and said he'd paid Gotti up to $2.7 million that the Gambino family extorted from the construction industry.
Maybe I am missing something here, but what in the world does an old picture of Carlo Gambino, other hoods and Sinatra have to do with this trial and John Gotti Jr.?
Don Cardi
Don Cardi
Five - ten years from now, they're gonna wish there was American Cosa Nostra. Five - ten years from now, they're gonna miss John Gotti.
