John Gotti, the future boss of the Gambino crime family, was born on October 27, 1940, in the Bronx. He was the fifth of 13 children born to John Gotti Sr. and Fannie DeCarlo. By the time he was 12, the family had moved to East New York, Brooklyn, where they lived in extreme poverty.
Gotti quit school at 16 after years of truancy. Before that, at age 12, he had joined street gangs connected to organized crime. At 14, he suffered a permanent limp when a cement mixer he was trying to steal fell and crushed his toes. He soon committed himself to the Fulton-Rockaway Boys gang, where he befriended future Gambino mobsters Wilfred “Willy Boy” Johnson and Angelo Ruggiero.
In 1958, he met Victoria DiGiorgio, his future wife, whom he married in 1962. The couple had five children, and Victoria also had a child from a previous marriage. Gotti’s criminal record grew throughout the 1960s. He served prison time in 1962 and again by 1966.
By early 1968, he was arrested again — this time for his role in a 1967 hijacking of a United Airlines shipment at John F. Kennedy Airport, which raised his profile within the Gambino family. While out on bail, he was arrested once more for hijacking a $50,000 shipment of cigarettes. He later admitted to a separate Northwest Airlines hijacking and was sentenced to three years at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary.
Upon his release in 1972, Gotti rejoined his crew under capo Carmine Fatico and took over oversight of the Bergen crew’s illicit gambling operations. In 1973, after the kidnapping and murder of Carlo Gambino’s nephew Emanuel Gambino, Gotti, Ralph Galione, and Ruggiero were tasked with finding the suspected killer, James McBratney. When a fake arrest attempt failed, McBratney was fatally shot. Witnesses and a police insider identified Gotti as the shooter.
Gotti was arrested in June 1974, but with attorney Roy Cohn’s help, he pleaded guilty to attempted manslaughter and received a four-year sentence. He was released in July 1977. In October 1976, Carlo Gambino died and named Paul Castellano — not underboss Aniello “Neil” Dellacroce — as his successor. The decision split the family into two factions.
Castellano kept Dellacroce as underboss, reportedly reopening membership rolls as part of the arrangement. Gotti became acting capo in Fatico’s place in 1977 and was officially initiated as a made man. Reporting directly to Dellacroce, Gotti was viewed as his mentor’s protégé. His crew became the underboss’s top revenue producer.
In December 1978, Gotti took part in the infamous Lufthansa heist at Kennedy Airport, the largest unrecovered cash robbery in U. S. history at the time. The getaway van driver disobeyed orders to crush the vehicle at a Brooklyn scrapyard, and police later found the van with usable fingerprints, helping the FBI track down suspects.
Tensions escalated in Gotti’s personal life in March 1980, when a neighbor, John Favara, accidentally struck and killed Gotti’s 12-year-old son, Frank, who was riding a minibike. Favara was not charged, but when he tried to apologize, Victoria Gotti attacked him with a baseball bat. On July 28, 1980, Favara was kidnapped and never seen again. He is widely believed to have been murdered on Gotti’s orders, though Gotti and his family were vacationing in Florida at the time.
Animosity between Gotti and Castellano continued to grow. Castellano alienated street-level members, and Gotti complained about his mandatory cut of hijacking proceeds. Castellano had also banned made men from dealing drugs, which fed rumors that Gotti himself was involved in narcotics. Those suspicions were supported by FBI recordings taken from bugs placed in Ruggiero’s home.
In August 1983, Gotti’s brother Gene and Ruggiero were arrested for heroin trafficking. Castellano demanded transcripts of the bugged tapes, which contained damaging conversations involving Gotti. When Ruggiero refused, Castellano threatened to demote Gotti. By 1984, Castellano was indicted under the RICO statute, and in 1985, he was charged again with involvement in the Mafia Commission.
Facing life in prison, Castellano installed Gotti as acting boss in his absence, alongside Thomas Gambino and capo Tommy Bilotti. Meanwhile, Gotti was secretly planning to overthrow him. He built a conspiracy with capos Frank DeCicco and Joseph Armanno, along with soldiers Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano and Robert DiBernardo. The group called themselves the Fist.
Gotti believed Castellano would eventually try to have him killed. Under Mafia tradition, a boss normally could be assassinated only with commission approval, but Gotti avoided seeking it from the other bosses because of their ties to Castellano. Instead, he secured support from influential figures in the Lucchese, Colombo, and Bonanno families, while steering clear of the Genovese family because of Castellano’s closeness to its leader, Vincent Gigante. He also relied on Gambino consigliere Joseph Gallo, despite Gallo’s family connections.
On December 2, 1985, Dellacroce died of cancer. Castellano revised his succession plan, promoting Bilotti to underboss, naming Thomas Gambino sole acting boss, and preparing to disband Gotti’s crew. Castellano also skipped Dellacroce’s wake, sealing his fate. On December 16, 1985, Castellano and Bilotti were ambushed and shot dead outside Sparks Steak House in Manhattan.
Gotti and Gravano watched the hit from a car nearby. Days after the murder, a three-man committee was announced to oversee the family temporarily, but it was an open secret that Gotti was the acting boss. On January 15, 1986, a meeting of 20 capos formally installed him as the new head of the Gambino family.
He kept Gallo as consigliere and appointed DeCicco as underboss.