Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage promised donors to his online crowdfunding campaign that their money would only go to construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. However, he cashed in on that trust by secretly taking more than $300,000 in donations to buy himself a luxury car, jewelry and pay down his debts, according to a Justice Department indictment unsealed Thursday. Kolfage 38, of Miramar Beach, Fla., is a well-known Purple Heart recipient who survived a rocket attack in 2004 at Balad Air Base in Iraq that caused the amputation of his legs and right arm, according...

The Gottis are back in town — and the bloodshed could just be beginning. Police are taking a serious look at whether Gambino crime family boss Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali was whacked in an internal war for control — with one of John Gotti’s brothers and a key associate fresh out of prison and possibly looking to seize power, law enforcement sources told The Post on Thursday. While the motive for the Wednesday hit on Cali outside his Staten Island home remains under investigation, cops were probing whether it was part of a brewing American-vs.-Sicilian power struggle — with Gene...

“Gotti” starring John Travolta is just as bad as you might imagine, and then some. I can’t say I blame director Kevin Connolly, who took over from a long series of unfortunate incidents that led to this production. Connolly was hamstrung by Travolta, by a really grossly bad script, and a series of producers some of whom had criminal records. Last night’s premiere of “Gotti” was entertaining more for the celebrities who showed up– Regis and Joy Philbin, Susan Lucci and husband Helmut Huber, former police commissioner Ray Kelly and his wife Veronica, and their broadcaster son Greg among them....

Thirty years ago Wednesday, shots rang out in front of Sparks Steak House in Midtown, leaving then-Gambino crime boss Paul Castellano dead in the gutter, and signaling the rise to power of John Gotti who would soon become the most famous gangster in America. It was also a development, according to mob experts, that ultimately speeded up the demise of the five mob families in New York City. "It was one of the most singular acts that altered the existence of the New York Mafia," said Phil Scala the retired head of the FBI squad that investigated the Gambino family....

It’s one of Rockland’s worst kept secrets. GOP and Preserve Airmont candidate for mayor Philip Gigante is the grandson of the late Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, longtime godfather of the Genovese crime family and arguably the most powerful gangster of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The Chin Gigante was best known for an intricate act he put on to appear insane, so clever that he was able to fool court-appointed psychiatrists, and for walking around in bathrobes and talking to himself around Greenwich Village. The act earned him the monicker “The Oddfather.” He also gained fame for a...

When Gambino boss John Gotti literally rotted to death in prison from throat cancer in 2002 at least one mobster shed no tears. Former Gotti associate Peter "Bud" Zuccaro testified yesterday at the racketeering trial of John Burke that the Dapper Don's cartoonish swagger violated omerta -- the code of silence -- which turned the Mafia from a secret society into a public circus which "'ruined everything' for wiseguys" as reported by John Marzulli for the Daily News: "There was no love lost for me," Zuccaro testified in Brooklyn Federal Court. "He publicized everything that was going on," he said...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.justice.gov/usao/mow/news2010/harrison.ind.htm JULY 9, 2010 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BLACK MARKET TRAVEL AGENTS 38 DEFENDANTS INDICTED IN MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR FRAUD LOCAL INVESTIGATION EXPOSES NATIONWIDE NETWORK THAT USED STOLEN IDENTITIES, CREDIT CARDS TO PURCHASE AIRLINE TICKETS KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that 38 defendants from across the United States have been charged in a series of indictments that allege an extensive network of black market travel agents who used the stolen identities of thousands of victims as part of a multi-million dollar fraud scheme...

NEW YORK – Now that the government has given up trying to put him in prison, John "Junior" Gotti says he may leave New York and try his hand at writing true crime stories. The son of notorious Gambino boss John Gotti held a celebration dinner Friday at a restaurant in Westbury on Long Island. Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday that after a series of hung juries they wouldn't seek a fifth retrial against the younger Gotti, who says he quit the mob in 1999. ... He says it may be "better for everybody" if he moves away.

John "Junior" Gotti seemingly has his father's knack for avoiding conviction. Federal prosecutors have decided not to seek a fifth racketeering trial against the 45-year-old Gotti, the son of one of the most notorious mobsters in the United States, the Teflon Don, John Gotti. While the Gambino family crime boss eventually was convicted of racketeering, the younger Gotti, who insists he left organized crime a decade ago, avoided conviction in four trials. There won't be a fifth. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara issued a one-paragraph statement Wednesday saying prosecutors had decided not to seek another trial "in light of the circumstances."...

Junior Gotti Freaks Out In Court Against WitnessBy Jen Chung October 9, 2009 9:15 AM Well, it had to happen sometime: John Gotti Jr., currently on trial for the fourth time for racketeering, had a meltdown in court yesterday, yelling at a star prosecution witness and former mobster. The Post reports the Teflon Don's son shouted to John Alite during a break, "You’re a dog! You’re a dog! Did I kill little girls, you fag? You’re a punk. You’re a dog all your life — you always were. Do I strangle little girls in motels?" Apparently Alite was being led...

Lawyers for John "Junior" Gotti said they received notification Friday from prosecutors that a former NYPD detective allegedly tied to the mob has pleaded guilty to federal charges. The nature of the charges facing Phil Barrone wasn't disclosed, according to Gotti lawyer Charles Carnesi. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan declined to comment when asked if Barrone had entered any plea. Word that Barrone, who left the force in the 1980s, has entered a plea raised the question of whether the former cop might be a cooperating witness in the Gotti trial, slated to begin Monday.

One conversation was between Gotti and his father in 1998 John Gotti Jr. won the right Tuesday to play edited versions of prison conversations at his upcoming trial that his defense contends show that the mob scion had rejected the gangster life. However he lost bids to delay his upcoming murder conspiracy trial and limit the prosecution's evidence. This is the fourth time Gotti Jr. is being tried on allegations that he still ran his late father's Gambino crime family years after allegedly relinquishing "the life." Some of these prison conversations have been played previously at trial. One conversation...

A self-confessed Mafia 'rat' has testified that he once planned to kill John Gotti Jr. By Our Foreign Staff Last Updated: 3:13PM GMT 26 Feb 2009 John Alite, who has accused his former best friend of involvement in the drugs trade and in several murders, told a federal court in Brooklyn that he intended to kill the alleged Mob boss because he believed he had gone "soft". He broke the Mafia's code of silence ahead of giving full testimony in Mr Gotti's trial later this year. The alleged head of New York's Gambino crime family has pleaded not guilty to...

NEW YORK — It is perhaps the most intriguing unsolved mystery from the gaudy gangland career of John Gotti: Whatever happened to the neighbor who accidentally ran over and killed the mobster's 12-year-old son — and then vanished? According to papers filed this week in Brooklyn federal court, John Favara was shot to death on orders of the outraged Gambino crime family chief and his body was dissolved in a barrel of acid. Authorities said a cooperating witness identified Charles Carneglia, a 62-year-old former mobster, as the perpetrator in the 1980 incident. The court documents said Carneglia told another informant...

<p>The man who accidentally ran over John Gotti's young son was allegedly dumped in a vat of acid by a twisted Gambino hit man.</p> <p>Charles Carneglia, 62, who is awaiting trial for five Mafia murders, once boasted of his sick specialty in a tutorial for a turncoat would-be mobster, explaining "that acid was the best method to use to avoid detection," according to court papers filed yesterday.</p>

NEW YORK -- John "Junior" Gotti, who has renounced the mafia life of his famous late father, was arrested Tuesday morning and is expected to be charged with three past mob-related hits, News 4 New York has learned. FBI agents nabbed Gotti, once head of the Gambino crime family, at his Oyster Bay, Long Island home and whisked him to Manhattan federal court for a hearing on murder conspiracy charges, law enforcement sources said.

The bosses of New York's five Mafia families in the mid-1980s came a hair-trigger away from sanctioning a hit on then-federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani, according to bombshell FBI records made public today. Before cooler heads prevailed - the mob bosses decided by a razor-thin 3-to-2 margin not to try to whack the future mayor and presidential candidate - at least two of the dons argued fervently that the mob-busting U.S. attorney should sleep with the fishes. Bonanno boss Philip “Rusty" Rastelli, Genovese chief Vincent “The Chin" Gigante and Lucchese honcho Anthony “Tony Ducks" Corallo all cast votes to spare the...

Fuhgeddabout John Gotti and gangsters. Think about George Bush and his mob. That was the advice of the Dapper Don's widow after she visited his crypt yesterday on the fifth anniversary of his death. Speaking hours before the nation learned what happened to Tony Soprano, Victoria Gotti Sr. said America is too fascinated with organized crime figures. "It's disgusting that everybody is still obsessed with Gotti and the mob," said the 64-year-old family matriarch. "They should worry about that mob in Washington. Those are the guys that got 3,000 deaths on their hands. The government is obsessed [with Iraq] and...

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 the late federal judge Richard C. Casey acted properly in overseeing the Manhattan trial of Peter Gotti. Gotti, 67, was convicted in December 2004 of racketeering conspiracy. A former sanitation worker, Gotti was ordered by Casey to begin serving his sentence only after completing a 9 1/2-year prison term from a...

NEW YORK - As he languished in a federal prison in 2003, John "Junior" Gotti had plenty to worry about. The jail, he told visitors, was crawling with informants. He had money problems. Old friends were getting indicted. Other members of the Gotti clan were stealing his money. But at the root of his troubles was this: The modern mob, he lamented, was losing its manliness. "Now are we men? Or are we punks or rats or weasels? You tell me," he angrily asked one friend while serving a racketeering sentence. Gotti's conversations were routinely recorded before his release from...