A mob family's last stand (A real-life soprano on trial.)

The Economist ^ | 8/15/05 | The Economist

[voletti]

Do you know the difference between a restricted beating and a severe one?

WHEN prosecutors dropped a charge of conspiracy to murder against John “Junior” Gotti last month, leaving kidnapping, loan-sharking, extortion and stock fraud still on the sheet, a defence lawyer sniffed memorably: “We really only have a white-collar crime case.”

And perhaps it is, by the standards of the defendant's father, John senior. The head of the Gambino crime family was convicted of murder and racketeering in 1992 and died of cancer in prison ten years later. John junior, who was brought up in the family business, was completing five years' jail for racketeering when this latest batch of charges was brought last year. He went on trial this week, pleading not guilty and saying he had put crime behind him. “People can change,” insists his lawyer.

New Yorkers have not changed in the relish with which they follow such trials, timeless in their details. One snitch for the prosecution, Frank “Frankie Fapp” Fappiano, spent Tuesday explaining to jurors the difference between a “restricted beating”, with the hands, and a “severe beating”, requiring “a blackjack, a pipe, a baseball bat or a two-by-four”. The victim of the alleged kidnap, Curtis Sliwa, was the founder of the “Guardian Angels”, volunteers who patrolled the New York subway in the sink-like 1980s. He says he was grabbed and shot because he attacked John senior in a radio broadcast.

This may well be the Gottis' last courtroom drama. Last month Peter, John senior's older brother, was sentenced to 25 years in jail for ordering a failed hit on a Mafia turncoat called Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, who helped convict his brother.

[voletti]

I smell a few tell-all book deals pretty soon - starting with the jurors of course...