John Gotti Jr.

Changing scenery a bit, we take this next case examination to New York, back in 1992, though one could certainly say it wasn't the first time it would involve one John Gotti Jr. of the mafia. Born in 1940, Gotti Jr. started out as a petty thief in a street gang. His first arrest was when he was fourteen years old, yet he was able to talk his way out of stealing a cement mixer by

"attributing the theft to a boyhood prank."* Moving up in the criminal underground, Gotti found himself as a member of the Gambino family, the most powerful Italian mafia in the nation at the time. After aiding in and committing several felonies for the mafia, eventually he became the godfather through the usual tradition of the next-in-line being whacked by someone else. Cited by many as the "Teflon Don" during his reign as Godfather, it was an expression showing his ability to bypass the law, even when he has cold evidence against him. However, his charm and good nature towards the judicial system would not last as his criminal record stacked up during his years as the Don, and he was eventually arrested on multiple accounts of murder, drug trafficking, loan sharking and other felonies. Put up against an anonymous jury in 1992, for their sakes, and he was finally held guilty on all thirteen counts, and not even his reputation could persuade his way out of justice that year.

What I took away from this case was not so much the impact it may have had on the state of New York, or even on the people directly involved in the crime. The nature of this criminal that led me to blog about him in particular was his natural affinity of working around the judicial system, which was something I wanted to bring to light in some manner. It happens: certain people are able to buy their freedom, or rather their lives back, for what a common murderer wouldn't be able to afford. A man with the amount of influence of Gotti Jr., not just in the underground but also in the casinos in particular was able to easily slide through justice until it all stacked up and buried him under a mountain of neglect and carelessness. The court system isn't like this everywhere; that's hardly what I am suggesting with this post. All I wish to bring to light was the fact that you don't just see these kinds of happenings in gangster films.

For more information on John Gotti Jr. and his trial, visit the link below:
*http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/gottilinks.html