AP News, May 31st, 2007
A federal appeals court upheld Peter Gotti's 25-year prison sentence for ordering a failed hit on Mafia turncoat Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, whose testimony doomed Gotti's mob boss brother John to die behind bars.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a decision dated Wednesday, ruled that federal Judge Richard C. Casey acted properly in overseeing the trial of Peter Gotti, a former sanitation worker.
Gotti, 67, was convicted in December 2004 of racketeering conspiracy. He was ordered by Casey to begin serving his sentence only after completing a 9 1/2-year prison term from a previous racketeering case.
A three-judge appeals court panel concluded it was appropriate to let the jury hear evidence of murders carried out by the Gambino organized crime family once led by John Gotti, who was sentenced in 1992 to life in prison and died there a decade later.
The killings were not carried out by the defendants but proved the existence of a criminal enterprise in which the defendants participated, the court said.
The appeals court said it was also proper to let the jury hear statements John Gotti made in prison to Peter Gotti. In one, John Gotti says of Gravano, "We'll, we'll, we'll answer this rat."
Gravano was the key prosecution witness in John Gotti's racketeering conviction. John Gotti, once known as the "Teflon Don" for repeatedly beating government charges, was convicted after his once-trusted underboss left the Gambino crime family for the federal witness protection program.
On the witness stand, Gravano admitted involvement in 19 murders. He served a five-year sentence and was relocated to Arizona, but he quit the witness protection program and promoted a biography about his criminal exploits.
Trial evidence showed Peter Gotti exercised his power to order killings while he was the family's boss by ordering the murder of Gravano and providing $70,000 to carry it out.
Prosecutors said Peter Gotti and Thomas "Huck" Carbonaro, a reputed mob captain, conspired with associates in 1999 and 2000 to kill Gravano in Arizona with a homemade land mine or a hunting rifle. The appeals court also upheld Carbonaro's 70-year prison sentence.
The plot was spoiled when Gravano was arrested on drug charges in February 2000. Gravano was sentenced in 2002 to 19 years in Arizona state prison for leading an Ecstasy drug ring.
At trial, prosecutors said Peter Gotti was a leader in the Gambino crime family throughout the 1990s and accepted positions as acting boss in 1997 and boss in 2001. They said he sought revenge against Gravano for the devastating impact of his testimony at John Gotti's trial.
The appeals court also agreed that Peter Gotti should not spend less time in prison because of his age and health, finding "nothing unreasonable" in the sentence.
Gotti lawyer Joseph A. Bondy said he was disappointed that the appeals court did not address some of his arguments, including a claim that the trial judge was biased in favor of the prosecution. He said he would ask the appeals court to address some of the arguments on which it did not comment.
