John Gotti | The Fall | 4

It's January 1986, two weeks after the murder of Paul Castellano, the most powerful mafia boss in New York.

In the dead of night, the Gambino family gathers in a basement somewhere in lower Manhattan.

The Gambino captains, mostly middle-aged men in neutral colored suits, take their seats at a large table.

None of them have ever been here before.

That's by design.

Neutral ground is important for this closed-door meeting to discuss the most sacred of topics.

Choosing Paul's replacement, the new Don of the family.

At the head of the table is Joe Gallo.

He's conciliary to the Gambinos, which means he's essentially an institutional right-hand man to the boss.

Until a new Don is chosen, Frank is temporarily in charge.

He calls the meeting to order.

A chorus of shuffling fills the basement as men clear their throats and tent their fingers.

Joe tells them what they're here to do, alluding to Paul's murder, which he calls unsolved.

No one says anything to that.

Everyone knows John Gotti and his men took Paul out, but killing a Don comes with an automatic death penalty, no matter the circumstances.

Even acknowledging the culprit out loud would compel the family to put a hit out on John, a move that would kickstart a civil war, because there's no way John's men would take that lying down.

Instead, the family pretends Paul's assassins are still on the loose, rather than sitting amongst them around the table.

When Joe finishes speaking, Frank DiCicco stands.

He's a broad guy who just turned 50 with thick black hair.

He's respected, so the room falls silent when he raises his hand.

He points at a 46-year-old John Gotti and names him, not as a killer, but as the new boss of the family.

At the other end of the table, John nods appreciatively.

For a moment, no one else speaks.

Then, the captain sitting next to Frank smiles and seconds the nomination.

The man to his right follows suit.

On and on it goes around the table like dominoes falling.

It's unanimous.

John Gotti is the new boss of the Gambino family.

A celebration ensues.

The captains line up to flatter John and pledge their fealty.

The new boss looks like a kid on Christmas.

All these tough, gravelly guys flattering him is what he lives for.

The feeling of victory and power intoxicates him, especially after the risk he took to get this outcome.

It's like he just hit the jackpot, and for a compulsive gambler, there's no better feeling.

John Gotti is at the top of the heap, and he's ready to do whatever it takes to stay there.

He smiles at his partners, Sammy the Bo Gravano and Angelo Ruggero.

Without their help, he wouldn't be on the throne.

He knows that.

But now that he's the king of the castle, they can't be just his friends anymore.

They're his subjects.

Everyone here works for him.

From Airship, I'm Jeremy Schwartz, and this is American Criminal.

In the late 1980s, the assassination of Paul Castellano catapulted John Gotti to unprecedented fame and public scrutiny.

And unlike his predecessor, John wasn't a shady bookkeeper who kept to the shadows, but a larger than life character who acted more like a celebrity than a criminal.

Taking his cue from the mobsters of the roaring 20s, he became a mafia don for a modern age of excess and showmanship.

He had fans, and to some, he was even a folky roux.

The gentleman persona was all just for show though, because behind closed doors, John Gotti's rise had only made him more brutal and dangerous.

He started flying off the handle at every slight, ordering hits just because he could, because he felt omnipotent.

Suddenly he was taking essential relationships for granted and tossing his loyal friends aside.

In his mind, he didn't need any of them.

He was the only one who mattered.

That world view came with a cost.

In time, John found himself alone at the top of the Gambino family, with no one he felt he could trust.

The power and infamy was what he'd always wanted, but his cocky attitude and thirst for attention only invited trouble from the authorities, who worked night and day to put him behind bars.

Eventually, his own words caught up with him, and the noose tightened around his neck.

John Gotti sought to solidify the mafia as an unassailable empire built around himself, but instead, he ran the organization straight into the ground.

Instead of inspiring loyalty and respect, he turned his own men against him, triggering the greatest betrayal in mob history.

This is the fourth episode in our four-part series on John Gotti, The Fall.

It's the evening of January 23rd, 1989, in New York's Little Italy, three years after John Gotti assumed top position in the Gambino crime family.

Officer Joseph Coffey, a 60-year-old cop on the Organized Crime Task Force, takes up position across from the Ravenite Social Club.

He peeks around the corner of a narrow alleyway and speaks quietly into his walkie-talkie.

Joseph is one of 23 officers surrounding the unassuming brick building, slowly locking down the perimeter and creeping closer to their target.

It's a lot of heat, but Joseph knows you have to be prepared for anything when you're arresting someone like John Gotti.

The plan is to follow the 49-year-old mobster out of the club and nab him a block away.

They don't want to risk booking John when he's surrounded by his entourage of adoring fans and trigger men.

As if he's acting on Joseph's cue, John Gotti strides out of the door of the Ravenite and down the street, heading north.

NYPD detectives and task force officers clear the area to stay out of sight.

Keeping his eyes on John, Joseph falls in to step behind him.

At first, John doesn't notice his tail, but after a moment, he hears Joseph's footsteps and spins around.

He recognizes the detective.

This is the third time Officer Coffey has arrested John in the past four years.

At the sight of him, John's face changes.

He slips into character and gives Joseph a wry smile as the officer pulls a pair of handcuffs.

John quips, Three to one, I beat the charges.

Joseph scowls.

Like any good cop, he hates the mafia.

But John Gotti's cocky attitude gets under his skin like nothing else.

While reading out John's charge for assault, he grabs the scruff of the Don's coat and slams him against the plate window of a nearby store.

The glass rattles, nearly cracking under the impact.

John hacks and coughs while Joseph tightens the iron bracelets.

Once he's caught his breath, John just laughs.

He tells Joseph it doesn't matter how many charges the police heap on his back, he's untouchable.

Joseph doesn't respond, just curls his lip and shoves John Gotti into the back of a waiting patrol car.

Like always, John keeps a tough face in public, but privately, he's a little worried about these latest charges.

The arrest is over a shooting that took place three years earlier, back in 1986.

It wasn't long after John became Don of the Gambino family, that one of his capos, Philip Modica, came to him for help.

At the time, Philip was building a restaurant in Battery Park, a residential area on the southern tip of Manhattan.

To get the place up and running on the cheap, he'd hired non-union carpenters, which the local chapter of the carpentry union took issue with.

Union official John O'Connor ordered his men to vandalize the construction site, likely not realizing its owner was connected to the mob.

Philip went running to the boss for help, and John ordered the Westies, a low-tier gang affiliated with the Gambinos, to bust up the union men responsible for the vandalism.

The Westies took that directive and shot up the local chapter of the Carpentry Union.

An FBI wiretap overheard John ordering the attack, but the union official O'Connor refused to press charges.

He discovered who he was messing with and had no intention of poking that hornet's nest again.

Now though, years later, a member of the Westies is speaking up.

James McElroy has taken a plea bargain on an unrelated charge, and part of the deal includes him testifying against John Gotti in the case.

That's why John's spending the night in a cell on January 23rd, 1989.

When he enters the jail, the small-time lawbreakers inside can't believe their eyes.

Muggers and drug dealers pass excited whispers back and forth.

As he's escorted down the cell block, the criminals give John a standing ovation.

He's a living legend.

But legend or not, in court the next day, John's indicted for assault.

It's a small charge compared to the racketeering case he's already beat, but his previous convictions mean he's still facing significant jail time.

And he's not alone.

Two of John's men are indicted along with him.

Anthony Gurieri and Angelo Ruggiero.

John doesn't say much to either of them.

He's especially cold to Angelo, who's dying of a chronic illness.

At one time, these two were as close as brothers, but Angelo's drug dealing has caused the family a lot of legal trouble in recent years, so the Don has tossed him aside.

The betrayal cuts Angelo deep.

He's been trying his hardest to reconnect with his old friend.

Through John's wife, Victoria, Angelo has tried calling and writing John to apologize.

None of his pleas get through though.

As far as John's concerned, Angelo's already as good as dead.

After the indictment, John is let out on a $100,000 bond.

That kind of money has chump changed to him.

He spends about the same amount on sports bets every couple of weeks.

The money might not be a concern, but there's something else about this whole episode that's troubling John.

This recent betrayal by the Westie gang member has John seeing traitors behind every door.

He becomes obsessed with eliminating any and all rats.

In September of that same year, while waiting for his case to go to trial, John is constantly getting updates on the other litigation facing the mob.

And one of those cases catches his attention, because he's sure that there's a rat at the center of it.

Fred Wise is a 50-year-old real estate developer and associate of the Gambinos, and he's been indicted for his role in a massive illegal dumping scheme in Long Island.

According to prosecutors, Fred and a number of other mobsters leased a landfill and have been raking in money by dumping tons of asbestos and medical waste there.

Essentially, they charged exorbitant fees to dispose of the waste properly for their customers, then just tossed it all in the landfill with the regular trash and pocketed the extra money.

All told, Fred and the other men made over $7 million by violating health and environment regulations.

None of that is what bothers John Gotti.

As long as he gets his cut, he doesn't care what schemes his guys get up to.

What does make him raise his eyebrows is hearing that Fred has gotten himself a new lawyer for the case.

He recently fired a fleet of defense attorneys who are known for representing organized crime and replaced them with much cheaper representation.

John can only think of one reason he would do that.

Feeling the weight of his growing paranoia, he falsely assumes that Fred doesn't think he needs expensive attorneys because he's turned states witness.

And without waiting for any evidence to prove his hunch, John orders Fred's assassination, even though his suspicions are completely unfounded.

Just a few days later, Fred Wise is shot outside his home as he walks to his jeep to head to work.

By this time, the bloody assassination and broad daylight is a familiar story for the cops to write up.

Fred isn't the only guy murdered because John Gotti suspects him of being a rat.

And the Don doesn't stop there either.

Stool pigeons, real or imagined, are in his only targets.

He's already running a tight ship, but he decides that he needs to do more to nip this problem in the bud.

He keeps his ear to the ground, eager to hear about any insubordination or perceived disrespect towards him, the sort of minor thing that could eventually become all-out betrayal if it's not punished.

In December, he turns his sights on a Gambino soldier, Louis de Bono.

Louis is a heavyset businessman with a square jaw and big eyes framed by pilot's glasses.

He works a day job in the construction industry and has connections to men with deep pockets.

For months, he's been talking a big game about a major payday, claiming he can rake in as much as a billion dollars doing drywall work on the World Trade Center.

John Gotti wants a piece of the action and repeatedly invites Louis to take a meeting with him.

But Louis dodges the summons for months.

The snub enrages John and that alone is enough to sign his death certificate.

Not long after John gives the order, a hit man lies in wait at the parking garage outside the World Trade Center.

When he spots Louis climbing out of his Cadillac, he seizes his chance.

Louis gets three bullets in the head and falls back into the driver's seat.

After that, John appoints one of his top men, Sammy the Bull Gravano, to take over Louis' position in the World Trade Center business.

It seems like a good fit because Sammy has experience in construction.

But it's not long before John starts to regret the decision.

He tells one of his confidants that now Sammy has too many interests in construction, too much power and money.

What's more, he's getting sloppy.

Anytime Sammy has a business dispute with someone, he just resorts to killing them and absorbing his rival's assets.

Sloppy or not, Sammy's becoming a major player.

The more businesses he controls, the more men who depend on him for income.

In time, their allegiance might shift from John, the boss of the Gambino's, to Sammy, the man who's making them all rich.

And to make matters worse, Sammy's not sharing enough of his wealth with the rest of the family, with John.

Paranoid, John comments to some of his men that Sammy's building an army inside an army.

He's just like Paul Castellano, John's greedy predecessor.

Sammy's whole situation is eerily similar to the way John himself rose to power in the family.

He spent years watching out for his crew as their direct superior.

While enriching himself in his men, he put himself at odds with Paul, and eventually positioned himself as an alternative to the money-hungry boss.

Now, the thought of Sammy doing the same thing has John on edge.

But for the time being, all he can do is keep an eye on the Paul.

He has at least one phone call where he shares the suspicions with one of his confidants, but otherwise doesn't make any moves against Sammy.

It's possible that it's a momentary doubt that melted away once he said it out loud.

But giving voice to his grievance will eventually prove to be John's fatal mistake.

His words will come back to haunt him in just a few short years.

In the meantime, though, he's got more than Sammy Gravano on his mind.

As 1989 comes to a close, John's attention shifts to his impending trial for assault.

And when his day in court dawns, John slips on his best suit and plasters on his media-friendly smile.

It's time for the Teflon Don to do his thing.

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It's January 1990.

John Gotti sits with his back straight in a stiff courthouse chair while his lawyer shuffles papers.

Beside him is an empty seat where Angelo Ruggiero would have been sitting had he not passed away a month ago.

Not that John cares about his old friend.

He's happy to have the extra space.

He turns around and grins at the packed gallery.

Eager journalists are sandwiched between everyday guys from John's neighborhood who've come to show their support for the Don.

To them, John's a celebrity, a guy who throws massive parties and draws traffic to their businesses.

That reputation stands in stark contrast to the charges John's facing today, though.

He's accused of ordering an attack on a union official as retaliation for damage done to one of John's guy's restaurants.

As the judge gavels the court into cession, James McElroy is called to testify.

Of all the recent cases against John, this one seems the most tenuous, legally speaking.

It leans heavily on James' eyewitness testimony as a member of the Westies, the gang that John ordered to shoot up a union office.

John glowers as the thin, moustachioed man takes his place on the stand.

James tells the jury that he first met John Gotti at a wake for a murdered mafioso.

That's where John called James into a gloomy room in the back of the funeral parlor for a chat.

But James says that wasn't when he got the order to shoot up the union office.

That came later, through an intermediary.

James and his gang had waited for John O'Connor in the lobby of the union building.

As O'Connor waited for an elevator, the men jumped him, shooting him four times in the legs.

Afterward, they bolted, leaving O'Connor sprawled on the floor, screaming at the top of his lungs.

In the courtroom, John Gotti bites his lip listening to James' testimony, but eventually collects himself and returns to his usual placid nonchalant expression.

He's annoyed, but staying positive.

James McElroy stuck to his story on the stand, but as a career criminal, his testimony only carries so much weight with the jury.

With their key witness done testifying, the prosecution next plays some garbled tapes taken from the FBI wiretaps at John's club.

The Bureau spent six months enhancing, analyzing and transcribing them, but the audio was still hard to make out over the sounds of running water, hairdryers and overlapping conversations.

The centerpiece of the tapes is John Gotti saying, we're gonna bust him up, apparently referring to John O'Connor.

It sounds bad, but it's far from definitive proof that John orchestrated the shooting.

After five weeks of proceedings, the jury votes to acquit John Gotti, denying the authorities their long-for guilty verdict.

John's fans literally cheer in the courtroom when the verdict is read out.

With that, John's dodged three convictions in almost as many years.

And as far as anyone can tell, he didn't even have to bribe the jury this time.

Afterward, John heads to the club in Little Italy where he was arrested, the Ravenite, to celebrate.

As he enters, another round of cheers erupts and two women rush up to kiss him on the cheek.

That night, fireworks sparkle and pop over the lively neighborhood.

The Teflon Don remains untouchable.

Law enforcement hasn't given up on seeing John in chains.

Their latest defeat only makes them more desperate to put John Gotti away.

Robert Morgenthau III, the 89-year-old Dean of New York's DAs, is especially passionate.

John is making a mockery of the justice system, buying out juries and getting cheered by sycophants at every step of the way.

A few months after the O'Connor case, in November of 1990, Robert bends over his desk and puts on his tortoise shell glasses.

A slanted tower of thick binders is stacked in front of him, almost as tall as he is.

It's the material for the state's latest stab at John Gotti.

Robert is working with a Brooklyn attorney to bring a major suit against the Gambino family.

They want to get John on conspiracy, racketeering, obstruction of justice, tax evasion, illegal gambling, extortion and loan sharking.

That's a lot of charges.

But the real lynchpin of the case will be the murder of Paul Castellano.

The authorities want the hit that launched John Gotti into mob superstardom to be the one that puts him away for life.

Even while Robert Morgenthau and his team are still sifting through mountains of evidence, John's already feeling the heat.

He's got a cop on the inside who passes tips to the family.

When he hears the state is working on yet another racketeering case, John starts sweating.

The endless stream of litigation hasn't unseated him, but it has robbed him of many of his top people.

In John's line of work, there's a lot of hijacking, scamming, and killing to be done, and it seems like there are fewer reliable men than ever to go out and get those things done.

That means there's less money coming in, and John has never needed it so badly.

At the peak of his tenure as Don, the Gambino family was reported raking in half a billion dollars a year.

But those days are over.

The government's surveillance and endless litigation has slowed down some of the Mafia's operations.

Plus, funding John's platoon of lawyers, fixers and informants is getting expensive.

And that doesn't even include his gambling habit.

On the lookout for a way to make a quick buck, he zeros in on a supposed drug dealer, Pazzi Conti.

Pazzi has a day job as an executive at a supermarket chain, while also working as a captain for the Gambino family.

John is sore because he remembers back in the day when Paul Castellano was the Don, Pazzi was passing along huge streams of money.

Once, he even got Paul a Mercedes as a gift.

John wants that kind of present too.

He entrusts Sammy the Bull with making his dreams come true.

These kinds of jobs, intimidating family members and carrying out hits, are where Sammy shines.

But they're also a way for John to keep him busy, and limit the energy Sammy can devote to his own growing businesses.

So, loyal as ever, Sammy meets Pazzi and puts the squeeze on him.

Pazzi nervously explains that since John took over the family, he stopped dealing drugs, so he no longer has the money he once did.

Sammy says that John's not interested in excuses, and strongly suggests that Pazzi start earning the way he used to.

Whatever he was doing for Paul, he needs to do it again.

It takes Pazzi a few months to get his drug operation up and running again, and during that time John knows he's inching closer to an indictment.

By October, his sources are all telling him that his next arrest is imminent.

He has to work out a succession plan to make sure the family keeps running smoothly if and when he's thrown in jail.

That's where John runs into a dilemma.

Sammy is the obvious choice to run operations while John is out of commission, but he's not sure he trusts his guy like he used to.

Problem is, he doesn't have many other options.

So, despite his misgivings about handing Sammy the keys to the kingdom, he's the best option John's got at this stage.

Everyone else is dead or already in prison.

Even going with Sammy is not without its complications.

There's every chance that he could be arrested right along with John.

So, they come up with a new scheme.

Sammy will go on the land, hiding out in a safe house and lying low.

He'll run the family from there if John gets pinched.

In October 1990, Sammy slips out of New York and heads for the Pocono Mountain Range in Pennsylvania.

He's grown a dirty blonde beard to hide his face as much as possible and is ready for a long stay away from the city.

No one recognizes him in the mountains, which is perfect.

But it turns out that Sammy doesn't care too much for peace and quiet.

After a lifetime on the hard scrabble streets of New York, it only takes a few weeks for him to start hating Pennsylvania.

Sammy decides he'd rather be somewhere more exciting and takes what he thinks will be a covert trip to Atlantic City in New Jersey.

But even with his beard, old friends recognize him and he realizes that staying and hiding is going to be harder than he expected.

So Sammy pitches John a new plan, a compromise.

He'll hide out in Brooklyn, where he'll convert an abandoned warehouse into a secure location.

He'll get a guard dog, stock an armory, and otherwise keep a low profile.

That way, he'll be in the city with an easy reach in case he's needed on short notice, and he won't be as restless as he has been in the mountains.

It's a solid plan, but even though John agrees to the idea, they never get the chance to put it in place.

While Sammy's back in Manhattan to finesse the details with John, the FBI spot him.

They're well aware that he's trying to dodge their surveillance, and they don't want to let him disappear now that they found him.

If they're going to close the net around John Gotti and one of his remaining lieutenants, they need to act fast, and they need to act decisively.

Around 5 p.m.

the next day, December 11, 1990, the FBI arrive to stake out John's headquarters, the Ravenite Social Club.

Frigid wind rips through the streets.

One set of agents, armed with binoculars and notepads, keep their eyes on the building.

Meanwhile, a second, larger team is a couple blocks away preparing for the arrests.

About 40 minutes into the stakeout, Sammy shows up, looking annoyed.

He's frustrated that John refused to have this meeting in a more discreet location instead of this busy part of the city that every cop knows about.

Figuring that they're being watched, Sammy's even shaved.

He doesn't want the feds getting a picture of him with his ridiculous beard.

It's about 6 o'clock when Sammy meets a few other guys in the back of the club.

They sip espresso and make small talk while they wait for the don to arrive.

In typical fashion, John's late.

He finally breezes into the club close to 7, accenting his camel hair coat with a bright yellow scarf.

He takes a seat against the back wall right in front of a huge drawing of himself and his late mentor, Neil de la Croix.

Outside, the agents watching the building radio their team.

Number one is in.

Within minutes, the arrest team has entered the club and cornered the gangsters in the back room.

Jaws are on the floor.

This was supposed to be one of the final safe meetings before the feds made any arrests.

John has informants embedded with the authorities, but none of them warned him the cops were making their move today.

Still, John keeps his cool, telling the agents he'll come quietly as soon as he finishes his espresso.

And he takes his time sipping from that tiny white mug.

The agents let John act out his power play, then drag him and the rest of his crew outside in handcuffs.

They take John directly to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, keeping him separated from Sammy.

The next time these two men see each other again is in court, where they listen two hours of their own incriminating conversations caught on wiretaps.

At one point, the state plays a tape of John talking trash about Sammy.

This was a while back after Sammy took over the World Trade Center construction job, when John was worried that Sammy was getting too powerful.

In the tape, he compares Sammy to the late Paul Castellano, claiming Sammy is getting rich and not sharing his wealth like he should.

Sammy is blindsided by what he hears.

For years, he has helped John rise to the top of the family.

He was instrumental in carrying out the hit on Paul Castellano, and has worked his tail off for the boss ever since.

Now he is hearing what John really thought of him all that time.

For his part, John can't help but slouch a little in his seat like he is ashamed of himself.

When he and Sammy are taken outside the room for a break, Sammy can barely contain his rage.

He wants to talk about the tapes, but John is not going to say a word.

It's beneath him, he thinks.

The Teflon Don doesn't have to explain himself to anyone.

But that's not good enough for Sammy.

He's fed up, and he decides it's time to take action.

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It's the middle of 1991 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan, a few months after Sammy Gravano heard tapes of John Gotti trash-talking him.

Since that day in court, Sammy hasn't been able to put the betrayal out of his mind.

Even so, he stayed outwardly loyal to his boss.

After a lifetime in the mafia, he knows the consequences of breaking rank.

And it's not like he wants to be a rat, but lately, John's been getting on his last nerve.

Sammy and John are killing time in the common area with Frank Licassio, another gangster who's been roped into the racketeering case.

Though there's tension between them, they're taking comfort in each other's company.

The correctional centers all bright lights, small beds and wide open toilets.

It's not a fun place to be, and Frank's eager to make things at least a little more bearable.

He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a couple of oranges he swiped from the mess hall.

He passes one to Sammy, then offers the other to John.

That's all it takes.

The Don's face turns the same color as the fruit.

He erupts with rage and unloads on Frank, totally belittling him.

John screams that Frank should have offered him an orange first, not Sammy.

He's owed respect, see, there's a pecking order.

Frank shakes with embarrassment as other inmates start to glance over at their small group.

By the end of John's unhinged tirade, Frank, a lifelong mobster, is literally in tears.

Sammy can't believe his eyes.

Risking his own neck, he pulls his infuriated boss aside and chastises him.

Dressing down another member of the family in public like that is not okay.

John, still seething, raises his arm as if he's gonna punch Sammy in the face.

But when Sammy puts up his own fists in response, John backs down.

He grumbles to himself and saunters away to a distant corner of the room.

Sammy returns to comfort Frank, who tearfully says he wants to kill John.

Quietly, he tells Sammy that if they're somehow acquitted at trial, he wants to be the one to pull the trigger and blow John Gotti away forever.

But privately, Sammy's making his own plans for how to bring John down.

Not long after that, Sammy Gravano makes the most important decision of his and John Gotti's life.

For the last 30 years, Sammy's entire world has been the mafia.

He's committed more murders for the family than he can count.

But now, he's starting to realize that the men he thought of his brothers would hang him out to dry in a second to save their own necks.

So, he decides to do the same.

He sends a secret message to the FBI.

He wants to turn state's evidence.

He'll be the first ever underboss to testify against a mafia don.

The decision shocks the Bureau's office.

It sounds almost too good to be true.

With Sammy Gravano on their side, the authorities know they can nail John Gotti for good.

But they have to act fast.

They need to get Sammy out of the Metropolitan Correctional Center before the wrong people find out he's gonna rat.

On November 8th, 1991, Sammy's pulled out of his cell by a heavily armed guard and brought to a safe house deep in Long Island.

There, sitting on hard chairs and dim lighting, Sam opens up to Special Agent Bruce Mao.

At first, Bruce is skeptical of Sammy's motivations.

Part of him believes the mobster is just playing some angle, offering false information to frustrate the state's case.

For his part, Sammy knows he has to prove himself if he wants to earn some kind of immunity.

He needs to dig deep, to drag skeletons out of the Gambino family closet for all the world to see.

He starts by telling Agent Bruce about the murder of Paul Castellano, naming each and every shooter who was outside the steakhouse that night in 1985.

After that, Bruce is convinced Sammy is the real deal.

Now he needs to protect his asset, and he's not taking any chances.

He orders a SWAT team to take Sammy to Governor's Island, a former military base in the middle of New York Harbor.

They fly Sammy out in a Black Hawk helicopter and offer him a special suite, where he and an officer will temporarily live together under lock and key.

Sammy spends weeks giving hours-long briefings to his new handlers, telling them everything he knew about the Gambino family's crimes.

In total, he confesses to 19 murders, sometimes as the shooter, sometimes as the backup or the planner.

He implicates John Gotti in at least five hits, and provides detailed information on how John fixed the juries in his previous racketeering case.

Not that John's concerned about the jury in his upcoming trial.

All his attention is on Sammy.

A talkative guard has told him about Sammy being removed from his cell and transferred elsewhere.

Driven by his paranoia, John's ordered his men to figure out what's going on.

A few days later, the media picks up on the same clues.

Law enforcement try to keep Sammy's turn under wraps, but his absence is conspicuous.

Once they've got the scent, newspapers can't resist reporting that Sammy the Bull Gravano is likely cooperating with authorities.

They're not concerned with whether their reporting affects the state's case.

John Gotti sells papers and that's all there is to it.

The betrayal is cataclysmic in New York's underworld.

The Gambino family becomes frantic as captains try to track down other members who might have collaborated with Sammy.

The mafia even wiretap Sammy's wife, Debra, hoping to pick up some clue about where their rat's hiding.

But the FBI finds the bug and disconnects it.

Eventually, the Gambino family figures out where Sammy's being held, thanks to media reports.

But their efforts to infiltrate the facility come up short.

That means that John Gotti's gonna have to face court without the cards stacked in his favor.

And thanks to Sammy's evidence about what John's done in the past, he can't even rely on his usual tricks.

In January 1992, the judge agrees to sequester the jurors to keep them out of reach of the mafia.

The 18-person panel has to stay in a hotel under armed guard for the duration of the trial.

All of a sudden, it's John Gotti versus the world.

On March 2nd, 1992, Sammy the Bold takes the stand to face down his boss.

He's wearing a gray double-breasted suit, a somber counterpart to John's bright blue ensemble.

Over the course of hours, he tells the jury his life story, complete with lore details about the murders he was involved in.

He caps it off by describing the hit on Paul Castellano and John Gotti's official induction as Don of the Gambino family.

The defense attempts to paint Sammy as a craven, evil criminal who's trying to avoid responsibility for his misdeeds.

They claim Sammy is the only guilty one, a killer who's blaming his friends to save his own skin.

In the end, that argument doesn't do much to sway the jury.

On April 2nd, after 14 hours of deliberation, they find John Gotti and Frank Licascio guilty of all charges.

The conspiracy, the racketeering, obstruction of justice, tax evasion, illegal gambling, extortion, loan sharking and murder.

Both are sentenced to life in prison without parole.

John is sent to a high security penitentiary in Marion, Illinois.

Though he remains the boss of the family in name, he is too far away and cut off from the world to run things.

Instead, some of his few remaining right hands rule in his place, at least for a while.

As the years pass, law enforcement gets to these men too, saddling them with hefty prison sentences of their own.

In return for immunity from prosecution, Sammy the Bull helps put away 38 other mobsters, crippling the organization as a whole.

Behind bars, John maintains his tough, wry demeanor and is still technically the boss of the Gambino's.

But that doesn't mean much anymore.

He can't exert any real control from his cell, and the family is a shadow of what it used to be.

On June 10, 2002, John Gotti dies in a prison hospital from throat cancer.

He was only boss of the Gambino family for about six years before he went to prison.

But his impact on the crime world is practically unmatched.

In some ways, he served as a bridge between two generations of mafioso.

He was one of the last crime bosses to embrace an old school Al Capone image with his flashy suits and witty remarks.

But he also changed the way the mob did business, daring to embrace drug dealing and tampering with the justice system in broad daylight.

That combination took him to the top.

But he didn't get there alone.

He needed a lot of help from men who broke the law for him, kept silent for him, killed for him.

Once he became Don though, he forgot the people who put him there.

He knew how to play the media, but he bought into his own hype.

He abused his friends and stroked his ego at the cost of everyone else around him.

He'd orchestrated one of the most audacious mob hits in history, believing himself to be the way forward for the institution he devoted his life to.

But John Gotti was no better than any of the Dons who came before him.

He was jealous and vengeful, short sighted and paranoid.

All things that in the end brought him undone.

From Airship, this is Episode 4 in our series on John Gotti.

On the next series, one man's murderous actions become a defining moment of the civil rights movement and kick off a decades long fight to bring him to justice.

If you'd like to learn more about John Gotti, we recommend Mob Star, The Story of John Gotti by Jean Mustaine and Jerry Cappecci, Gotti's Boys, The Mafia Crew, The Killed for John Gotti by Anthony M.

DeStefano, as well as Reporting in the New York Times.

This episode contains reenactments and dramatized details.

And while in most cases, we can't know exactly what was said, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz.

Audio editing by Mohammed Shazi.

Sound design by Matthew Feller.

Music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Terrell Wells.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson and Lindsey Graham.