Chef Junior Gotti?

Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, Gambino Crime Family

Prosecutors on Thursday accused mob figure John 'Junior' Gotti of having 'cooked up' his defense against racketeering and conspiracy allegations as they opened their case in his third trial on the charges. Jurors deadlocked in the two previous trials when they could not agree on the 42-year-old's defense that he withdrew from the mob while in prison on separate charges.

Gotti says he left the Mafia before he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in 1999, meaning that a five-year statute of limitations would by now have expired. Prosecutors say Gotti took over as boss of the Gambino crime family after his notorious father, John J. Gotti, was sent to prison in 1992. He died there ten years later.

The younger Gotti is suspected of ordering the beating and kidnapping of Curtis Sliwa, founder of New York's Guardian Angels anti-crime patrols after Sliwa criticized his father on his radio show. Prosecutor Victor Hou said on Thursday that Gotti's defense was a 'ploy' thought up while he served prison time knowing he would be indicted again.

Hou said the government had fresh evidence that Gotti continued to be a part of the mob from prison, including receiving rent from properties bought with mob proceeds. 'The truth is Gotti never left the life because he never gave up his mob money,' Hou told the jury in Manhattan federal court. 'It is an elaborate lie he cooked up a year before he was ever charged in this case.'

He said he would introduce tape recordings of Gotti showing anger at being demoted in the Gambino family as evidence he was still part of the mob and that he deliberately talked about having left knowing he was being recorded by the government. But Gotti's lawyer Charles Carnesi told the jury that the government would present old evidence that only proved he was a mob figure before 1999. 'There is nothing new that has come to the attention of the government,' he said. 'They don't have evidence after 1999. They know he was out, so they want to recycle this.'

Tapes prosecutors would introduce only proved he had left, he said. 'In 1999 Mr Gotti wanted to get out of his life in the criminal world,' he said. 'That is the message in this trial, he's out of this life.'

Prosecutors added several new charges for his third trial including racketeering and witness tampering to counter his defense. Sliwa is expected to again testify he was shot and wounded in the back of a taxi in Manhattan but miraculously survived. The trial is expected to last several weeks.

Thanks to Christine Kearney

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Wiretapped Calls Could Close Case On Genovese Suspects

Friends of ours: Genovese Crime Family

Prosecutors said evidence against seven men accused of running the Genovese crime family's South Florida operation includes thousands of hours of phone intercepts and more than 150 undercover videotapes.

According to a prosecutor, investigators recorded about 12,000 phone calls through court-ordered wiretaps over more than a decade. Prosecutors also have some 10,000 pages of seized documents. A judge said that because of the amount of evidence she will recommend a trial date not be set until early March.

All seven defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit extortion and robbery and other counts. The men were arrested June 30, 2006.

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Alleged Mob Ties to Maurice Clarett

Friends of ours: Hai Waknine, The Jerusalem Group

Maurice Clarett was bankrolled by an alleged member of an Israeli crime organization after leaving Ohio State, ESPN has learned, and Clarett's attorney said Thursday that his client may have been in possession of firearms last week to protect himself against mob activity.

Clarett's attorney, Nick Mango, said Thursday that Clarett has repeatedly received death threats over the past year but that a cryptic postcard sent from Los Angeles last week has him wondering about Clarett's ties to an alleged mob enforcer.

In the late summer of 2004, ESPN has learned, Clarett traveled to Los Angeles and was introduced by a rapper friend to Hai Waknine, 35, a convicted felon who federal prosecutors believe is a member of an Israeli crime organization called The Jerusalem Group. Waknine, who at the time was facing a federal indictment on extortion and money-laundering charges, became Clarett's sponsor and adviser, along with Waknine's attorney, David Kenner. Waknine provided Clarett with cash, a BMW, bodyguards, drivers and beachfront lodging in Malibu, Calif., with the understanding that he would be reimbursed and receive 60 percent of Clarett's rookie contract. But when Clarett was released by the Denver Broncos in August 2005, he was unable to pay Waknine back, and ESPN has learned that Waknine eventually cut off Clarett financially. Clarett moved back to his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, that fall.

After Clarett was arrested last week, allegedly wearing a bulletproof vest and possessing four guns and a hatchet, Clarett's attorneys say they received an anonymous phone call alerting them to Clarett's ties to Waknine. They grew more suspicious when they received the threatening postcard this week.

Mango said he is concerned that postcard, sent to his law office in Columbus, Ohio, may have come from Waknine. "That's our question, whether it's from him or people associated with that scene out there," Mango told ESPN. "Again, it came from Los Angeles, and we don't know what to make of that. … We're going to turn this over to someone in law enforcement and see what they think [of the postcard]. … We've always felt he had some reasons to fear for his safety, and we don't think any of his actions the night he was arrested -- despite the way it's been spun -- were that he was a threat to anyone else but more of him being in fear for his safety for quite some time."

Mango also said he believes Clarett's debt may have something to do with the threats. "I believe he owes [Waknine] money, and I think [Waknine] is probably not the only one [he owes]," Mango said. "Whether it's someone all the way on that coast or more on this side of the country; it's no one that I'd want to owe money to. … A call came to our office [about Waknine], kind of giving us a rumored story. It's been kind of tossed around by us, and quite frankly, Youngstown has quite a reputation -- if you don't know it already -- for the Italian side of that ball game. And everyone here thought, 'Well, you wonder with money changing hands … ' Having heard the things we've heard, this is a little more concerning."

Waknine's current relationship with Clarett is not clear, although two hours before Clarett's arrest, the running back called an ESPN reporter and mentioned, in passing, that he and Waknine were still friends. However, ESPN has learned that the FBI contacted Clarett about his relationship with Waknine before the 2005 draft, and it is unknown whether Clarett cooperated.
Waknine went on trial on June 5, and he pleaded guilty a week later to a single racketeering charge, admitting that he threatened violence to extort money from several individuals. Waknine, who was unavailable for comment Thursday, is expected to receive a nine-year prison term at his sentencing Sept. 11. His attorney, Kenner -- the former lawyer for Death Row Records and its founder, Marion "Suge" Knight -- did not return phone messages left at his office and cell phone.

It's no secret, however, that Waknine provided Clarett with a life of luxury from August 2004 to August 2005. "When I worked with Maurice, he had Hai and a very high-profile lawyer (Kenner)," strength coach Charles Poliquin said earlier this year, after having trained Clarett in November and December 2004 in Phoenix. "There are not a lot of guys that want to play pro football who have a team of lawyers and money men backing them up, and, for sure, they had his best interests at heart. But he was living too nice a life. Too nice. He was living in Malibu. Right on the beach. I've been to the house. [Waknine] owned like 10 cars and said, 'Pick whatever car you want.'" But money eventually became an issue, especially for all of Clarett's three personal trainers. None of them -- Poliquin, Chad Ikei and Todd Durkin -- said he was ever paid for his services, and when one contacted a member of Clarett's inner circle to be reimbursed, he was told, "You'll get paid when I get paid."

Mango said he has neither the time nor the resources to investigate Waknine, but he found the threatening postcard puzzling. "It came on a small index card like you use in school or whatever, and whatever language that was on it was actually cut and pasted in the old-fashioned sense, like typed and then cut out and pasted onto it," he said. "And then, obviously, the identity of the sender has been pretty well kept … they took steps to keep that …

"I think anything you get where the sender has taken very obvious and extreme and multiple steps to keep their identity sealed, that concerns me. Maurice has gotten other letters and, quite frankly, so have we. People write notes and might use the N-words, but it's in their handwriting some. Some sign it, even an address. In this case, none of that. There's no way to trace this one."
Thanks to ESPN

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Junior Sings in Court

Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti

Junior sang in court yesterday - but he didn't give up any secrets.

John A. (Junior) Gotti did croon "Happy Birthday" to the judge presiding over his racketeering trial. "I led the attack," the mob scion joked afterward. "Everyone said, 'We're going to sing, we're going to sing,' and then they chickened out."

The command performance came after Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin's courtroom deputy opened the third day of jury selection by asking everyone to sing in honor of the judge's 60th birthday. Prosecutors and defense attorneys who seldom find themselves tongue-tied in a courtroom squirmed at the unusual request but managed to muddle their way through.

Both sides have so far amassed a pool of 40 jurors and will begin whittling the panel down to 18 today. Opening statements are expected to begin in the afternoon.

This is Gotti's third trial after jurors deadlocked at two previous trials. Gotti is accused in a wide-ranging racketeering conspiracy case of ordering a 1992 assault on radio host Curtis Sliwa.

Thanks to Thomas Zambito

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Mrs. Gotti Praises 'Mafia Cops" Judge

Friends of ours: John "Junior" Gotti, John "Dapper Don" Gotti, Gambino Crime Family, Ralph "Fat the Gangster" Eppolito, Jimmy "The Clam" Eppolito
Friends of mine: Louis Eppolito, Stephen Caracappa

Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein has a new unexpected fan: Victoria Gotti.
The matriarch of the Gotti clan wrote a letter to Weinstein, praising him for showing a "tremendous amount of courage" in knocking out the convictions of the "Mafia cops."

"I am a person that was totally, totally disillusioned with the justice system," Victoria Gotti wrote in an undated letter to Weinstein. "You have restored my hope that my own son may have a chance, or should I say a second chance at life."

The letter was entered into a court file yesterday.

Gotti has been silent since attending each day of her son John A. (Junior) Gotti's trial this winter, when he scored his second mistrial. Then she attacked a government witness who testified against her son, and defended her late husband, John (Dapper Don) Gotti, amid allegations that he'd fathered a love child.

She's expected back in court later this week for opening statements in a racketeering conspiracy case that centers on claims that Gotti, 42, ordered the assault on radio host Curtis Sliwa in 1992. "With two hung juries and a third trial in August, I am beyond [despondent]," Gotti said. "I continue to hope for a better day for him."

Last month, Weinstein tossed out the federal murder convictions of Mafia cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. In April a jury found that the former NYPD detectives participated in eight gangland slayings while still on the job. Weinstein ruled that the statute of limitations on the racketeering conspiracy had expired.

She began the letter by saying: "I want to applaud you on your decision in regard to the Eppolito and Caracappa case, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to do what you did."

"Those two men, Eppolito and Caracappa need to thank their lucky stars for your wisdom and fairness," Gotti wrote.

There happens to be a Gambino family connection with Eppolito: Two of his relatives, Ralph (Fat the Gangster) Eppolito and Jimmy (The Clam) Eppolito were Gambino family members.

Thanks to Thomas Zambito

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