New York City's mafia, an organization of brutal gangs. To gain wealth and power, members strong-arm businesses and kill anyone in their way. John Gotti was one of organized crime's fiercest members. He wanted to rule New York City. Put him in the spot light. The FBI had to stop him. John Gotti was ambitious, powerful, and ruthless. He ruled with flash and conspicuous style, playing celebrity with the media and cat and mouse with the FBI. They called John Gotti the Teflon Don. Serious charges just wouldn't stick. I'm Jim Kallstrom, former director of the FBI's New York office. When John Gotti came to power in 1985, organized crime still had its tentacles spread into many legitimate businesses. Like a game of chess, crime bosses were well insulated by layers of pawns. The FBI's job was to penetrate their defenses and capture the king. New York is the home of organized crime in America. Through intimidation, terror, and murder, the five families that make up New York's mafia have corrupted labor unions, run extortion rackets, and infiltrated almost every major industry in the city. Disputes among the crime families often erupt over who controls which union or what industry. These disputes are inevitably and violently resolved. By the 1970s, the Gambino family had emerged as the most violent and the most powerful crime family in the nation. As that decade came to an end, the FBI decided it was time to stop the mafia's reign of terror. The Bureau's New York office set up five squads assigned to investigate and bring down each criminal family. Special Agent Bruce Mouw was assigned to supervise the squad responsible for bringing down the Gambino family. The Bureau realized that we really weren't addressing organized crime here in New York. And so they formed a squad to target each particular crime family and try to address the organized crime problem here in New York. So, in 1980, we formed the squad and our target was to put the Gambino family in jail. The main targets of Mouw's investigation were the leaders of the Gambino family. The boss, Paul Castellano, and his underboss, Neil Dellacroce. Castellano assumed leadership of the family in 1976 when Carlo Gambino, the namesake of the family, died of natural causes. The FBI were also targeting the most powerful captains in the family, like John Gotti. The captains controlled crews of soldiers who carried out the day-to-day criminal activity for the family. Castellano's crews would commit the actual crimes, but Castellano himself did not. Catching him seemed impossible. As the FBI soon learned, the entire hierarchy of the Gambino family was well insulated. The family army consisted of over 50 captains who controlled over 300 soldiers. It was a large and impenetrable secret society, accessible to outsiders only through the lenses of surveillance cameras. But federal racketeering legislation was passed that made ordering criminal acts as much of a crime as committing the crime itself. In order to successfully prosecute the hierarchy of the Gambino family, the FBI had to secretly get them on tape discussing their criminal enterprise. Malt and his team would have to patiently and methodically work their way into the intricate structure of the Gambino family. It would take years to accomplish that goal. Agents tried to learn more by speaking to residents in the neighborhoods where mob activity was prevalent. You're sure now? Yeah. Well, take a look. You might recognize one of these guys. Take a look. Take a good look. Take your time. Few people were willing to talk. Only those on the inside could tell agents who were the real power brokers in the family. Cooperating witnesses and informants had to be developed. Betraying the Mafia meant certain death. Informants would be difficult to come by. But some were willing to take the risk. Most were low-level criminals cutting deals with the government to avoid prosecution and long prison sentences. Whatever their motivation, they gave agents something they did not have before. A back door into the Gambino family's criminal operations. Castellano ran the family like a major corporation. Named within the mafia as the Pope, he used unions to strengthen his grip on various industries in New York. Lewis Schiliro, head of the FBI's New York office, is an expert on organized crime. One of the most influential things that the Gambino family did was the control of the labor unions in New York City. They exerted at one time tremendous influence in terms of the longshoremen's union, uh in terms of construction industry trade unions, and and in terms of the Teamsters and trucking. Uh by controlling the trade unions in New York City, the Gambino family was able to control construction and certainly had a great influence in the garment center. And that generated tremendous amount of financial base to the family. You know, that's paper trail. Castellano knew how to keep his interests under control. Castellano also realized how important it was to uh rule by fear and terror. So, he had several enforcement arms of the family. He had a crew that was famous for uh killing people, dismembering bodies, and you know, all sorts of horrid things. So, even though Castellano was known as a businessman's Don, he was a tough guy. He had a hair trigger and uh temper. And he'd kill you at the drop of a hat. Getting to Castellano directly would be very difficult. His home in Staten Island was a fortress under constant supervision by armed guards. He had also installed a sophisticated alarm system. Agents had no solid evidence to suggest that Castellano conducted criminal business in his home. Without such proof, a court would never authorize an FBI bug or a phone wiretap inside the home. Agents hit the streets. They hoped to find one weak link to exploit. One person in the family who made himself vulnerable to electronic surveillance. They learned through informants about a Gambino family crew headed by John Gotti that operated in Queens. Headquartered in a private social club called the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club. A few of the FBI's well-placed informants were close to one of Gotti's lieutenants, a man named Angelo Ruggiero. Though known on the streets as the most vicious gang in the Gambino family, agents believed they found their weak link in Gotti's crew. And the reason we did was he had a lieutenant named Angelo Ruggiero, who ran the day-to-day operations for Gotti in his crew. And Angelo was an attractive target cuz number one, he's very active, uh involved a lot of criminal activity. Number two, he had a big mouth. He talked a lot. He was a gossip and a blabbermouth. Mal quickly established surveillance teams to identify, record, and log every person who entered the Bergen Club. Agents learned that John Gotti and his crew made money for the family primarily through hijacking, car thefts, extortion, and illegal gambling operations. Informants told agents that Ruggerio sometimes discussed family business on his daughter's phone. He believed the line listed in her name would be free of FBI bugs. Permission to wiretap a private telephone is granted sparingly. Agents must convince a federal judge that the target is engaged in criminal activities and that the wiretap is likely to produce more evidence. If conversations are not of a criminal nature, the wiretap must be turned off. The informant's statements were enough to convince a federal judge in late 1981 that Ruggerio's daughter's phone should be tapped. Maw squad had found a way to infiltrate the Gambino family. The wiretapping of Ruggerio's phone proved to be one of the most successful wiretaps in FBI history. The conversations overheard by the FBI were damning. But agents learned that Ruggerio also held meetings in his home with Gambino members. Maw and his squad had enough evidence to justify placing a microphone in Ruggerio's home. Agents slipped in, installed the bugs in his dining room, and left without a trace. The success of the Mafia has always been its ability to stay one step ahead of law enforcement. What Mauer and his squad did not know was that a high-ranking police officer was on the Gambino payroll. Though the mole didn't know specific details, he leaked information to family members about ongoing investigations and electronic surveillance operations. Angelo Ruggerio became paranoid that his house was bugged. He searched the house himself, but found nothing. Unconvinced, he called in a professional to conduct a thorough search or sweep for bugs. Yeah, I need someone to come sweep my house, please. Ruggerio ordered the sweep on a tapped telephone. When the FBI heard the conversation, they knew they had a crisis. 23 40 is 5 Richmond Street. You got a problem. The phone tap inside the home was immediately turned off to avoid detection. If discovered, it would destroy weeks of diligent work and send the squad back to square one. And there were no targets as talkative as Ruggerio. Yeah, just come right here. Okay. The sweeper arrived with the most sophisticated electronic detection equipment available. After 2 days of searching the house top to bottom, he was ready to report his findings to Ruggerio. 2 days after Ruggerio's house was searched for bugs, agents arrested the man who conducted the sweep of his house. What they learned was indeed shocking. He charged Ruggerio thousands of dollars for his services, but none of his detection equipment worked. He had swindled the mob. Fortunately, he had told Ruggerio his house was clean. It was a lucky break for the FBI. Not only had their bugs not been discovered, but now Ruggerio felt confident to speak freely in his house. And he did so with abandon, right into the FBI microphones. Slowly, the FBI was getting closer to the Gambino family hierarchy. To agents, the conversations were a gold mine. As Ruggerio met with his mob partners, the FBI learned of a major heroin trafficking operation conducted by Ruggerio and John Gotti's younger brother Eugene. Over a 6-month period, Angelo and Eugene Gotti had distributed over 50 kilos of heroin in New York alone. The FBI had every last detail on tape. There was a Mafia rule in effect that dealing drugs was strictly prohibited. The punishment for getting caught was execution. No appeal, no trial. Ruggerio did not have the bosses permission to deal drugs and he knew the consequences. The government felt it had a strong case against Ruggerio and Eugene Gotti. In September of 1983, they were charged with running a major heroin distribution network and obstruction of justice. Though all of those indicted were part of John Gotti's crew, his name was not mentioned in the tape conversations. But with the indictment, Castellano would soon find out that Gotti's men were dealing drugs. Learning of the heroin operation, however, was not the only valuable piece of information learned by agents. Just prior to his heroin indictment, Ruggerio would meet with other soldiers and discuss how he and John Gotti would go to Paul Castellano's house every Sunday for a family meeting. And then Ange will give him a blow-by-blow of what happened in Paul's house. The Pope did this, the Pope did that, he's mad at this guy. Everything's on the family we found out through Ange's big mouth. And the next day other soldiers come over of course Ange to reconstruct what happened again. So we found everything was happening again in the family, thanks to Ange Ruggerio, John Gotti and Paul Castellano. Based on the Ruggerio wire, agents now had probable cause to bug the house of Gambino boss Paul Castellano. Getting into Castellano's house took detailed planning and methodical execution. Agents managed to get inside the house and place the bugs. Soon after they began taping conversations that directly implicated Paul Castellano as the boss of the Gambino family. The man who oversaw a multitude of illegal rackets that cost taxpayers millions of dollars each year. Castellano would meet with his most trusted captains to discuss business. The FBI identified one of those captains as Sammy the Bull Gravano. As his nickname implied, the Bull was both strong and aggressive. He was a boxer and a bodybuilder. He was also the family's top enforcer. Gravano generated his money for the family in the construction industry. He was adept at a number of criminal activities, but his most notorious skill was murder. As the FBI continued to investigate powerful captains in the family like John Gotti and Sammy the Bull, their sights remained focused on the boss. In 1985, 2 years after Ruggerio was indicted, Paul Castellano was arrested and charged along with other New York family bosses with dozens of federal racketeering and conspiracy violations. Out on bail, Castellano continued to run the family. Though his attention seemed focused on how to beat the government's case against him. John Gotti was also facing his own legal troubles. An independent investigation led by the US Attorney's Office ended with Gotti and his mentor, underboss Neil Dellacroce, being charged with several counts of racketeering. Dellacroce and Gotti were released on bail, allowing them to continue their criminal operations. Months later, Dellacroce lay dying of cancer. The FBI had bugged his bedroom. Gotti and Ruggiero visited, and the FBI was listening. They recorded Gotti talking about his fears that Castellano might kill him and Ruggiero for getting caught on tape discussing their drug dealings and for leading the FBI to Castellano's house. The boss wanted to hear the FBI tapes. Dellacroce promised Gotti that he would do anything in his power to protect him. Dellacroce's loyalty to Gotti was causing a rift in the family. He was stalling the boss, reluctant to turn the tapes over to Castellano. The Gambino family was splitting in two. Then, in early December of 1985, Neil Dellacroce, the Gambino family's second-in-command, died of cancer in his home. On December 16th, 2 weeks after Dellacroce's death, Castellano and his new underboss, Tommy Bilotti, pulled up to a fashionable steakhouse in midtown Manhattan to meet some associates for dinner. As they started to exit the car, several men approached them and began firing. Castellano and Bilotti never knew what hit them. They were killed instantly. When the boss of the family is assassinated, the FBI believes that the person responsible is usually the one who steps up and assumes leadership of the family. It was mafia tradition to pay tribute to a new boss to show him respect. Two weeks after the murder, agents watched a parade of high-level Gambino family members enter the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club. They were meeting with John Gotti. Agent Mauer and his squad would have to restructure their attack on the Gambino hierarchy. John Gotti was the new boss of the family. Agents pieced together his criminal history and traced his rise to power. John Gotti became a Gambino family associate around 1970. He impressed the boss in 1973 by killing the man who had kidnapped and murdered a relative of Carlo Gambino. Gotti served 2 years for the hit before he was paroled. Upon his release, he quickly gained respect within the family. He began to make a great deal of money for the family through loan sharking and gambling operations. In his neighborhood, he became a hero of sorts, throwing huge 4th of July parties every year complete with fireworks. Special Agent George Gabriel was assigned to Mauer's squad in 1985. He quickly became an expert on John Gotti. He took care of if there were old ladies that were in need, if he had money in his pocket, he'd give it out. He was in in some respects a Robin Hood in his neighborhood. And that's how he he carried himself. But how did he make that money? By killing, by robbing, by manipulating, by bribing, by controlling rackets that he didn't have a right to control. And that's the side when when he didn't like you, when you fell on the wrong side of a John, you died. I mean, there was no mercy. You died. There was no two ways about it. Gotti was now the king. He found himself in command of a multi-million dollar crime network made up of scams he did not know existed. He had a lot to learn. With their bugs and surveillance, Special Agent Gabriel and the rest of the FBI squad learned right along with him. John Gotti took over that family, he had to learn what the rackets were. And as he's learning them, we're learning them. Who's got what industries, who's collecting from what unions. He's asking captains to give him a list of all the soldiers in their and their crews, so he could know who he's got in his family and how many. Gotti was the boss, but he still had legal troubles. Six months after becoming the head of the family, he was sent to jail to await trial on loan-sharking and gambling charges. Jail didn't slow him down, though. From his cell, Gotti ordered a murder. It was against Robert DiBernardo, who had been a close associate of Gotti. DiBernardo's assassination was set up by Angelo Ruggiero, who was still awaiting trial for his 1983 drug indictment. Angelo's one of the few guys who's got access to John in jail, and tells him that Robert DiBernardo is talking subversive behind John's back, the boss's back. He's saying that John isn't fit as the boss and we should appoint somebody else as the boss. Angelo wants this done because Angelo owes Robert DiBernardo a lot of money and he doesn't want to pay him back. I was going over some of these contracts here. This public housing contract. On Gotti's behalf, Ruggerio asked Sammy the Bull Gravano to set up the hit. You want some coffee? Yeah, that'd be great. You want some coffee with it? On June 5th, 1986, DiBernardo showed up for a meeting at Gravano's construction office. Everyone greeted him as usual. DiBernardo must have suspected nothing. You know we got all those contracts. He was shot in the head from behind. His body was never found. The FBI learned of his death through informants. Agents believed Gotti's crew was responsible for the murder, but they needed proof. In August of '96, 2 months after the DiBernardo hit, Gotti went to trial for the gambling and loan sharking charges filed 2 years before. But Gotti had not been the primary target of that indictment. The case was originally designed to bring down underboss Neil Dellacroce. The case against Gotti was never that strong. But an ambitious US attorney saw an opportunity to get a mob boss. Though the case did not involve Mouse Squillante, he sent George Gabriel to observe the trial. During a break in the proceedings, Gabriel came face-to-face with his adversary. I I myself. I told him I'm George I'm with the FBI. I work on Bruce Mou's squad. He says, "You tell him uh I'm going to be home in 6 weeks. I'm going to beat this one." I said, "All right, I'll deliver your message." I said, "And if you do, I'll be there to congratulate you cuz it'll be a good job on your part." He says, "Good. I I hope to see you." On March 13th, 1987, Gotti was acquitted on all counts. George Gabriel made good on his promise. After the verdict, Gabriel went to the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club in Queens, where Gotti was having an acquittal party. He congratulated Gotti. To the press, the public, and to prosecutors, John Gotti seemed untouchable. Out of jail, John Gotti resumed his celebrity status. Around town, he was seen at fine restaurants and glitzy nightclubs, always immaculately dressed. Already, he was known as the Dapper Don. Now, with his acquittal, he earned the title of the Teflon Don. Charges slid right off him. To the media, he was glorified as the underdog who took on and beat the government. But now, it was Mou's turn to make a case against Gotti. I get upset when they glorify a guy like that. To me, he's just a a common thug, a criminal, he's a terrorist. He doesn't believe in our government. He doesn't believe in voting, doesn't believe in church, doesn't believe in family. He's a mass murderer. How can you glorify this guy and make him a role model for your kids? It's very upsetting to me. In order to make his case against Gotti, Mou had to find out where he was conducting his business. The FBI bugs planted at the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club had dried up. Since becoming boss, Gotti wasn't spending as much time there. The squad leaned hard on informants to find out where Gotti held his high-level meetings. It took 8 months, but in early 1988, they finally found Gotti's new headquarters. Gotti turned the Ravenite Social Club in Little Italy into his headquarters. It was a symbolic gesture on Gotti's part. The Ravenite was his mentor Neil Dellacroce's old club. Here, Gotti would meet with his captains to conduct family business. Agents rented an apartment down the street from the Ravenite. A high-powered camera was installed to record all those who came and went from the club. In February of 1988, the FBI earned court approval to bug the Ravenite. With 30 or 40 people in the room, deciphering conversations was difficult. Cassette tape recordings of white noise were always being played in the club. Hearing conversations through that was impossible. But the FBI had to have John Gotti's orders on tape in order to charge him with running the Gambino family. So far, the bugs in the Ravenite had not produced much evidence. Gotti always suspected he was being listened to by the FBI, and he found clever ways to avoid being overheard. John Gotti was notorious for going on what we described as a walk talk, where he and the person he had to discuss something secretive. Not all mob business is open to everybody in the mob. There were times where a captain would have to speak with his boss. John Gotti would take that person and they'd go outside. Going outside, they're evading the the possibility of a bug. No matter what agents did, it seemed the mob was anticipating their every move, at times even taunting them. When I would sit in the van outside the Ravenite, they would bang on every van on the street and whisper, "We know you're in there." You get made all the time and you try your darnedest not to, but it happens. And you just have to stay with it. John Gotti ordered another hit out of range of the FBI bugs. This time, it was Louie Milito, a Gambino soldier whose loyalty to Gotti was suspect. Gotti felt Milito was a threat to the family administration, since Milito had been a close business associate of Paul Castellano and Tommy Bilotti. Sammy the Bull agreed to oversee that. He too had little use for Milito. Sammy felt he was trying to move in on the construction industry. Milito was shot dead under Gravano's supervision. His body removed and never found. The FBI learned of the hit through informant rumors. But again, there was not enough hard evidence on Gotti to arrest him. Gotti was ordering people killed right under the FBI's nose. The cat-and-mouse game intensified, and so did the pressure on the FBI to stop him from ordering more killings. Malt knew he was overlooking something. Gotti must be talking, but the FBI didn't know where. In December 1988, Bruce Mouw decided it was time to shut down the wire and regroup. It was a very frustrating time because we knew we were so close. So, we had these guys on videotape. We could see them coming and going. We saw the walkie-talkies around the street. We were so close, but yet so far away from achieving our goals. The bugs were shut down, but the FBI's Gambino squad would not give up. They developed a new informant who told them Gotti would sometimes be in deep conversation with one of his men in the Raven. Then abruptly, they would leave the table and go into a hallway behind the club. Usually, they were gone for 10 or 15 minutes. The meetings in the hall were no doubt incriminating ones. And in a quiet hallway, FBI bugs could pick up more of the conversations. The squad quickly took advantage of the opportunity. In October of 1989, agents bugged the hall. They recorded Gotti meeting with several Gambino family members there. The bug produced some evidence against Gotti, but not the evidence they needed to put him away for life. Gotti had to be meeting his men in another location within the building. Somewhere where he felt comfortable and safe. In the fall of 1989, agents learned from informants about another location within the building that Gotti frequented. Nettie Sirrelly was a widow. Her husband, Michael, had been caretaker of the Ravenite Club. When he died, she remained in the apartment they shared, just two floors above the club. It was believed that Gotti used Mrs. Sirrelly's apartment to talk about sensitive family business. Getting into Mrs. Sirrelly's apartment undetected was going to be a problem. She rarely left. As the FBI's special operations squad tried to figure a way in, agents learned that Mrs. Sirrelly would be leaving town for the Thanksgiving holiday. It was the opportunity they had been waiting for. Agents went to work. They sneaked into the apartment in the middle of the night and placed the bugs. On November 30th, 1989, the first conversation taped in Mrs. Sirrelly's apartment came over the wires, crisp and clear. All participants talked They spoke directly, using no code words or sign language like they often did when a bug was For weeks, agents listened in on the apartment conversations. On December 12th, 1989, they got the biggest break they could ever have hoped for. That day, Gotti and his underboss, Frank Locascio, met at the apartment. In a rambling conversation, Gotti left a trail of evidence that would later haunt him. He explained labor union rackets and other crimes. And he talked about ordering the murders of several people. The agents monitoring Gotti that night could barely believe their ears. More shocking to agents was what they heard Gotti say about Sammy Gravano. For over an hour, Gotti went on a verbal rampage about Sammy. He said Gravano was getting greedy, taking too big of a cut from the construction racket profits. He was becoming too active in the family, not respecting Gotti's authority. Gotti suggested that two murders that he himself had ordered were because Sammy was trying to protect his own interests. According to Gotti, Sammy had suckered him into murdering DiBernardo and Milito. It's a very important conversation because during this long diatribe, John confessed to two murders. He confessed to ordering the hit on Robert DiBernardo. He confessed to ordering the hit on Louis Milito. Both he claimed that Gravano was urging to have murdered. He also talked about a third guy named Louis Dibono who he was going to murder. Another partner of Sammy's. Uh John detailed also his control of different labor unions. He also detailed uh how much money he's making from different illegal activities. It was our smoking gun. It's the best tape of the entire electronic surveillance. After recording a few more conversations, the wire in the apartment was turned off in May of 1990. For Myles Gambino squad, all the years of patience had finally paid off. They had the best evidence they could imagine, and it was John Gotti himself. Over the next few months, agents put together their case against Gotti. The case against the Gambino family hierarchy, which began a decade earlier, was ready to come to a close. On December 12th, 1990, exactly a year after Gotti's fateful conversation, Special Agent George Gabriel and two others went to the Ravenite Social Club. Their purpose was to arrest John Gotti, Sammy Gravano, and Frank Locascio. Backup officers were close behind, or so Gabriel thought. When I went into the club uh to arrest them, they would they had just ordered coffee. And uh myself, my partner, and one of the police officers kind of accidentally went into the club ahead of the rest of the arrest team. We were about a minute ahead of everybody. So, there we were in the classic, you know, we've got you surrounded, and we're looking behind us, and there was nobody there. Uh there wasn't a problem. Everybody complied with what we asked for. And either John or or Sammy asked if they can have their cup of coffee, and I said, "Yeah, go ahead. We got plenty of time before we leave." On his way to be booked, Gotti asked Agent Gabriel what he was charged with. Gabriel ran down the list and told Gotti of the taped conversations, especially in the hallway in the apartment. At that, Gotti fell quiet. At a bail hearing a few days later, the three defendants heard excerpts from the FBI's tapes. They played a segment from the December 12th conversation. Sammy Gravano heard Gotti bashing his character. For the first time in life, John Gotti was embarrassed. He was turning shades of blue and pink and trying to duck under the table. Sammy was turning red. You could tell he was hot as a firecracker. And they kept looking at each other like, "What's going on here?" But that tape planted the seeds for the first time in Gravano's mind that he and got John Gotti could never coexist and one had to kill the other if they were going to get out of jail. After hearing the tape, Gravano realized Gotti's defense strategy would be to blame him for the murders. Gravano was being set up as the fall guy. On November 8th, 1991, Gravano decided to cooperate with the FBI and tell them everything he knew about the Gambino family. He filled in all of the details that were missing from the recordings about how he and Gotti committed crimes on behalf of the Gambino family and managed to stay one step ahead of law enforcement. Gravano arranged payoffs to jurors and a high-level police officer who had been supplying Gotti with classified information. Both the jurors and the corrupt officer were indicted and given jail sentences. Gabriel finally learned why Gotti had been able to avoid successful prosecutions. He's out there in everybody's face, "I beat the government. They've got nothing on me." Reality was, he bought the jury. Sammy Gravano paid a juror $60,000 to to throw that case. And that's a That's how he wins his case. The question most in need of an answer concerned the Castellano assassination. Through Gravano, the FBI finally learned the truth. The seeds for Castellano's assassination were planted when Angelo Ruggiero and Eugene Gotti were indicted in the heroin distribution ring in 1983. The prohibited operation could no longer be kept quiet from the boss. Castellano learned that the government's case was based on FBI recordings of Ruggiero. Castellano was furious. He wanted to hear the tapes for himself. Events began to snowball. In 1984, the tapes were finally turned over to the fence. And for the first time all the co-defendants and defense attorneys had a list tapes of Angelo blabbing about heroin trafficking. Means of Castellano's house, commission meetings, etc., etc. So, around 1984, Castellano, being the boss of the family, asked Ruggiero for a copy of the tapes. The tension between Gotti and Castellano was held in check by Della Croche. But when Della Croche died, the barriers were down. A few days after Della Croche's death, Castellano summoned his captains for a meeting. Tommy Bilotti would replace Della Croche as underboss. More ominously, Castellano declared that Gotti's crew would be disbanded, his men absorbed into other crews. Castellano had finally listened to the Ruggiero tapes. They had given the government such a good case that after the trial, there probably wouldn't be much of a Gotti crew anyway. Gotti was furious. And he knew he was a target. There was grumbling among the ranks that Castellano was preoccupied with his legal problems and wasn't paying enough attention to the family. Some members thought he was pocketing too much money for himself, not spreading it around among the soldiers and captains. Gotti began to formulate his takeover. He had Angelo Ruggiero approach three of the four other Mafia families. He wanted to know if they would look the other way if something were to happen to Castellano. The family said they would not interfere. Gotti carefully picked a few soldiers to help plan the hit. In particular, there was one Gambino member whose support would be crucial if the hit was going to succeed. Ruggiero was sent to ask Sammy Gravano if he would participate in the murder of Castellano. Gravano agreed. He was aware of the growing dissent within the family. He also knew that John Gotti was powerful enough to pull off the murder of the boss. And when the other families agreed to stay out of the way, Sammy knew the smart play was to back Gotti. Gotti put together a team of five Gambino family members to plan Castellano's assassination. They called themselves the fist of five. Hitting the boss of the Mafia's largest family was a formidable task. The fist would have to find Castellano away from his loyalists. And they knew that Castellano was under constant law enforcement scrutiny. He must be hit someplace where the FBI was not apt to be following him. Their best opportunity came in mid-December 1985. Castellano had asked five of his captains to meet him for dinner at Sparks Steak House in Midtown, Manhattan. But one of the captains was a member of the Fist. The night before the planned hit, the Fist convened at a construction office used by Gravano. Four shooters have been hired, two for Castellano and two for his driver and underboss Tommy Bilotti. The murders had been meticulously planned. On December 16th, the team gathered in a park about a mile from Sparks. The four shooters dressed alike in black Russian hats and light colored trench coats. If seen by witnesses, they were more likely to be remembered for what they wore rather than their faces. The primary shooters were to pair off just outside Sparks. Angelo Ruggiero was one of four backups who would block all avenues of escape. Gotti and Gravano would observe from down the street in that parked car, ready to shoot if necessary. If something went wrong, if they missed on the street, they were to move into Sparks firing until Castellano and Bilotti were killed. No matter who got in the way, Castellano and Bilotti had to die. It was dusk when Gotti and Gravano headed toward Sparks Steakhouse. The shooters took their places. Gotti and Gravano soon found their vantage point, a parking space at an intersection down the street from the restaurant. They waited in the car. Castellano was late. Perhaps he'd been tipped off about the plot on his life. In the middle of a conversation with Gotti, Gravano suddenly looked to his left and panicked at what he saw. It was a black Lincoln with Bilotti at the wheel and Castellano beside him. For one moment, Gravano and Gotti thought they would be seen. But the light changed and the car moved on. Gravano radioed ahead. It was time. As Bilotti pulled the car to the curb, the assassins advanced. Paul Castellano and Tommy Bilotti lay outside the car, each shot by six bullets. According to Gravano, Gotti eased the car into the street and passed the bodies sprawled on the pavement. He had to be sure Castellano was dead. Gravano's detailed account finally put an end to the speculating. As part of his plea bargain, Gravano testified against his former boss. He admitted to his role in 19 mob-related murders. He served 5 years in prison and voluntarily entered the witness protection program. On April 2nd, 1992, John Gotti was convicted of five murders, including Paul Castellano's and Tommy Bilotti's. He also was found guilty of other crimes under the umbrella of obstruction of justice and racketeering. They included bribery of a police officer, jury tampering, gambling, bookmaking, tax evasion, and attempted murder. John Gotti lived out his life in federal custody, stripped of his audience, his expensive suits, and his flamboyant style. He died in a prison hospital on June 10th, 2002. The FBI crackdown on organized crime is working. Louis Freeh, head of the New York office, is optimistic about New York's future. People today, I think, can can build the building in New York City without being shaken down by a Cosa Nostra family. I think a restaurant in New York City could have their garbage picked up without fearing that they will be shaken down if they don't pick a particular carter. Uh people today can compete on the Fulton Fish Market uh without the necessity of paying off one of the particular New York crime families. So, we've come a long way. Uh there is certainly a lot of things that left to be done, but but I think people generally in New York City, certainly, are starting to feel the effects of this effort. The battle rages on in New York City. Mafia families continue to plunder, continue to kill. But because of the ceaseless efforts of the FBI, the people of New York are beginning to feel relief as more and more mobsters like John Gotti are taken off the streets.