Informant Testifies Against Junior Gotti
Former Gambino soldier Joseph "Little Joey" D'Angelo testified "that Gotti approached him in jail in late 2004 and urged breaking the traditional taboo on admitting the mob's existence in order to fight a racketeering indictment the two men faced" as reported by John Riley for Newsday:
Federal prosecutors today "also introduced new audio evidence to try to prove that Gotti was still trying to collect a loan-sharking debt years after his alleged withdrawal from the mob, and within five years of his 2008 indictment":"John said the usual way of us fighting cases is over," D'Angelo told jurors in federal court in Manhattan. Instead, Gotti proposed one of them taking the stand "to say, 'I'm a member of a family, but I've been in jail for years, what have I done?'" Gotti assured him that Gambino family elders and Vincent Basciano, the head of the Bonanno family, among others, had blessed the new approach, and said he could just lie about any criminal activity he was asked about, D'Angelo testified. But D'Angelo, who became an informant in 2005, concluded that the tactic might be tolerated for a bigwig like Gotti, but not for him. * * * Basciano, who prosecutors say was in the federal lockup in Manhattan at the same time as Gotti in 2004, has also advanced a withdrawal defense in court. Gotti, D'Angelo testified, said Basciano told him in 2004, "I'm following your lead."
In an August 2003 recorded conversation with his sister Angel at Raybrook federal prison, Gotti tells her that his cousin Peter Gotti owes him $20,000. Then, in a 2007 conversation an informant recorded with the cousin, Peter complains about Gotti's refusal to forgive the loan, and about pressure from Gotti's brother, also named Peter. "He didn't do nothing for me," the cousin complains on the recording. "So then he starts sending Peter. . . . Peter says he's gonna, he's gonna beat up my friends if I don't do the right thing."
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