All language subtitles for Very Scary People s04e11 John Gotti 1.eng

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Welcome to "Very Scary People."

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

He was one of the biggest
celebrities of the 1980s.

His expensive suits and swagger

earned him
the nickname "Dapper Don."

But, in reality, John Gotti
was a man to be feared,

a ruthless, dangerous gangster
who ordered hits on his enemies,

his friends,
anyone who crossed him.

How did this common
street thug end up

ruling one of the most powerful
crime families in the world?

This is "John Gotti."

??

Feldman:
Carlo Gambino was, in 1973,

the head of
the Gambino crime family.

His nephew was kidnapped
and held for ransom.

The ransom money
was partly paid,

but unfortunately
for the nephew,

the nephew was executed anyway.

This, of course,
didn't sit well with Carlo.

Feldman: Vengeance is the order
of the day in mob families,

and so a contract
was put out to go

after and kill those responsible
for killing his nephew.

And that contract went out
to, among others, John Gotti.

Gabriel: John's introduction
to the family,

or his bona fides,

were gained by participating
in the murder of a guy

by the name
of James McBratney.

McBratney was suspected
of having kidnapped

and killed
the nephew of Gambino.

McBratney:
My dad was larger than life.

As a little boy,
I remember looking up

and seeing how big he was,
and he had tattoos all over.

He was funny.

He was loved by a lot of people.

He had gotten caught up
in doing some burglaries

and he was sentenced
to four years.

When he was in prison, he made
plans to kidnap gangsters

and hold them for ransom

because the wise guys
wouldn't call the police.

They would just pay.

They put a contract
out on my father,

and I was told
that my father was aware

there was a contract
out on his life.

I met a guy who saw him,
and he had told my father,

"Why don't you just leave?

Why don't you just get out
of New York for a while?"

And his answer was, "And what?

Leave my children?"

Therein lay the first
substantial homicide case

that Gotti got involved in.

They found McBratney
at a bar in Staten Island.

Raab: It was Gotti, his pal
Angelo Ruggiero,

and a third person who they
really didn't know too well.

The three of them walked in
pretending to be detectives.

They shot a bullet
into the ceiling

to get everyone's attention.

And they approached my father,

and the gentleman who was
sitting next to my father

told me that Gotti grabbed
one arm of my father,

and they said,
"We are taking you with us."

My father wasn't going
anywhere with anybody.

The guy told me ... he said,
"Your father dragged

Gotti and Ruggiero down
all the way

to the back of the bar
to the back room."

He was getting out
of their grip,

and that's when they killed him.

McBratney was dead
on the barroom floor.

When I first saw the photo,
my heart stopped,

my breathing stopped.

I don't know anybody
who could really see

a picture of their father
laying dead on the floor

and not feel shock.

The shoes that were on
my father in the photo,

I remembered loving
those shoes.

I couldn't wait to wear them.

I wanted to be like him,

like every kid wants to be
like his father.

There were three little kids
and a wife and mother

who were left so hurt,
so broken.

Did I want revenge?

Absolutely, I wanted revenge.

Raab:
The three of them shot McBratney in front of dozens of witnesses

who could identify them
from rogues' galleries.

Sooner or later, Gotti knew
the jig was going to be up.

Schumacher:
This was not the smartest hit

that John Gotti
was ever involved in,

because they
weren't wearing masks.

They weren't trying
to hide their identities.

And so it wasn't all that hard
to find him once they knew

he was involved
in the murder.

Gotti ultimately surrendered
and, lo and behold,

got one of the most expensive
criminal lawyers in New York,

a barrister by the name
of Roy Cohn,

who made his reputation
as the chief counsel

for Joe McCarthy
in the notorious crack down

on leftists in the 1950s.

He had tremendous influence
in New York city.

He was involved in prosecuting
the Rosenbergs,

later represented
Donald Trump.

Roy Cohn arranged
what can be described

as an unbelievable
sentence for Gotti.

He eventually copped a plea
to manslaughter and served,

I believe, four years
in state penitentiary.

Destefano:
After Gotti got out of prison for the McBratney killing,

soon after that,
he was inducted into Mafia,

became a made member.

And in that world,
that's the Holy Grail.

Feldman: Contrary to what
many people think,

not every person
who was in the Mafia

was considered a full-fledged
member of the mob.

In fact, most aren't.

And very few people

are selected
to become made men.

Being a made member of the Mafia

was really everything
that these guys aspired to.

Gabriel:
One of the things you have to do to be proposed as a made member

and actually be inducted is,

you have to participate
in a murder.

They want to check your loyalty.

Papa: That earns you merit
in organized crime.

You show that you have
the courage

or the temerity to do it.

Making your bones
basically means

that you're proving
you're bona fide.

Gotti made his bones
by killing my father.

Destefano: The induction
ceremony is a meeting

with other crime-family members,

where you're basically sworn
loyalty to the life.

Fingers were pricked to show
that you would give your blood.

And they burned a picture
of a saint in your hand

with the admonition
that if you betray

the brotherhood
of the crime family,

you will burn
as the saint is doing.

Schumacher: In other words,
this is going to be your life,

and you are going to follow
the principles of the Mafia

throughout your life up to

and including a complete
loyalty to the mob,

even above your own family.

Destefano:
And Gotti wanted nothing more than to be a gangster.

That really is
a signature moment.

Schumacher: So, a Mafia family
has a structure.

You have the boss, of course,
at the top.

Right below the boss
is the underboss.

And underneath the underboss,
there's a series of capos,

or captains,
who are really like crew chiefs.

After Gotti became a made man,

he became the captain of a crew
based in Queens.

Morrill:
From the moment that John came on the scene, you could see,

in the way he walked,
the way he held himself,

the way he carried himself,

he had a very strong opinion
of himself.

He had the knowledge
and understanding

that he could do
anything he wanted to do

without anyone
coming back at him.

Destefano: Gotti, particularly
as a capo and ruler,

could be very demanding,
very brutal, very threatening.

Cardinale: If he was not happy,
he was not shy

about letting people
know about it.

It was almost a storm front
if he was mad.

You did not want to get
inside that front.

There were times
that you would see him,

and he would be adamantly
pointing fingers into the chest

of some other member of the crew

so that they should
follow his orders

or they would suffer
the consequences.

They heard him often
berating people who made

what he considered
the slightest insult.

And if you weren't
convinced by that,

you probably
weren't going to survive.

??

To understand the Mafia,
it's important to know

its roots in America.

Schumacher: In the late 1800s
and in the early 1900s,

the United States saw just a
massive immigration of Italians,

and especially Italians
from Sicily.

And they were really

almost immediately
discriminated against.

They were treated
as second-class citizens.

A large majority of individuals
would say, "You know what?

We're gonna work hard.

We're gonna just do our best
to achieve the American dream."

However, there was certainly
a percentage of immigrants

who said, "You know what?

We need a shortcut."

And formed into gangs.

But the street gangs were not
particularly well-organized.

There was this notion
that things could be better.

And no one saw that more clearly
than Charles "Lucky" Luciano.

Raab:
Prohibition occurred, and to run an important bootlegging ring,

you had to become
almost an executive.

You had to import or manufacture
booze and beer.

You had to have a sophisticated
trucking system,

delivery system.

So they became big.

But the Italian-Americans
were fighting with each other

for territory,
killing each other.

There were gang wars.

Luciano saw that this was
no good for business

and that the only solution
was some kind of setup

where it would be
more profitable,

at the same time,
less dangerous.

Schumacher: So he created
something called the commission,

and the commission was
like a board of directors

for the national
crime syndicate.

Raab: He organized some 20-odd
families throughout the country,

the commission,
to resolve all major disputes.

In addition to that, it actually
wrote a constitution,

dos and don'ts, how you could
become a made guy,

how you were supposed
to conduct yourself,

all sorts of rules
and regulations,

and that you could never be
disloyal to the organization.

Omerta ... never cooperate,
never talk with law enforcement.

It's really kind of this whole
structured environment.

Feldman:
Cosa nostra is what most Americans refer to as the Mafia.

The literal translation
is "our thing."

And it is a kind
of umbrella title

that encompasses many
different mob families.

The mob scene in the 1970s
and 1980s in New York City

revolved around
the five classic Mafia families.

They were the Genovese, Gambino,

Lucchese, Bonanno,
and Colombo crime families.

Feldman: The Gambino family,
which was the family

that John Gotti ultimately
ended up heading,

was at one time considered
the most powerful

of the five Mafia families
in New York city.

It was powerful because
it had its tentacles

in many different areas,

from construction
to airport operations.

Cardinale: There was nothing,
according to the government,

that was built
that involved concrete

that they didn't have some
involvement and made money from.

Gabriel:
Organized crime and the Mafia families survived

by the revenue that they
can generate, basically,

from criminal conduct.

They were bookmakers.

They were loan sharks.

They were extorting businesses
for protection money.

You'd go into a restaurant
or a store in your neighborhood

and warn them something
might happen

unless they paid you some fees.

"I'm going to protect you
or I'm going to beat you up.

Which one are you
going to pick?"

These threats often
were very effective.

If you knew that something bad
could happen to you,

you would find a way to pay.

The threat of actually
being killed

is something that was
very real at that time.

By definition, you cannot be
the head of a mob family

without being feared
both by the public

and, more importantly,
I suppose,

by the people who work
for you in that family.

They're dangerous,
ruthless people.

Killing is in their fabric.

When you're doing street crimes
and robberies and hijackings,

you need tough guys.

John Gotti had a reputation
of being a tough guy.

So somebody steps out of line,

you need folks
who can enforce it.

John Gotti and his crew
were enforcers.

Whether it was as simple
as giving somebody a beating

or escalating it
all the way up

to actually having
to take a life,

he was known as a reliable
person that can do that.

Feldman: John Gotti rose
through the ranks

by things
like loan-sharking.

Schumacher:
Loan-sharking is the notion of giving out loans

to someone who needs money fast,
who needs cash,

and they're expected
to be paid back quickly.

In the case of Gotti's crew,

they were extremely effective
at getting their money.

And if they didn't get
their money,

people knew what
the consequences were.

Gotti and his enforcers
could be very ruthless.

One of the main methods
of organized crime to gain funds

was hijacking.

By the time the
early-to-mid-'70s came along,

he would actually
go out on hijackings.

Destefano: The trucks would
come off of the JFK area.

They'd be pulled over
by a couple of cars

that blocked their way.

The hijackers would go up.

They would tell the driver,
"Listen, give us the truck.

And by the way, from your
license, we know who you are,

so don't go running
to the cops."

You got goods that
you could fence.

Destefano: And that's how
John got his footing

into the organized-crime arena.

??

Woman: Mrs. Gotti was extremely
nice and polite

as she refused our request
for an interview,

saying her husband had joked
he'd take her to the dentist

and have her mouth glued shut

if she did any more
talking to the press.

Gotti got married fairly early,
when he was 22, to Victoria.

Victoria Digiorgio was a very
striking dark-haired woman.

Papa: But they had a rough time.

I think he maybe wasn't
the easiest person to deal with.

Raab: First of all,
he was fooling around a lot

with other women,
which she knew.

He would disappear for days.

Destefano: In the early days,
they didn't have much money,

and the story was that,
at one point,

Gotti sneaked Victoria

and one of their children
out of the hospital

because he couldn't
pay the bill.

Mom is, in a nutshell,
to sum up ...

she's an old-fashioned woman,
very traditional,

raised with the belief
that her children, her husband,

her home is the most important
thing, in that order.

Papa: John Gotti and his family
lived in Howard Beach, Queens.

It was not some big,
flashy house, McMansion.

It was a modest home
right on the block.

And that's where he lived
for many, many years.

Gotti had five children ...
three boys and two daughters.

King: What was it like
growing up a Gotti?

Victoria: Growing up a Gotti.

It was regimented, warm.

We were ... I think early on,
it was instilled in all of us

that we were
a close-knit family.

We had to remain
a close-knit family.

And I think that, growing up,
my dad executed the values

and the morals that he wanted us
to take through life.

Cardinale: His sons and his
two daughters were a big,

big, big part of his life.

You could tell that just
whenever he spoke about them.

Papa: He was very close
to his kids.

He loved them.

I think he wanted
to be protective

and he wanted to do
what he could for them.

Destefano: And therein,
of course, lay the route

to one of the tragedies
in their life.

??

Raab: Gotti's youngest son,
frank, of course,

grew up in Howard Beach.

Frankie, who was kind
of the apple of his eye,

had a minibike,
a small, miniature motorcycle.

And he drove it out in the
street one day between cars

and he was hit.

Papa: And the young boy died.

The Howard Beach driver
who struck and killed

little Frankie was John Favara,

and he was a person
from the neighborhood.

He lived not far
from the Gottis,

probably a few houses away.

And that, of course, sent Gotti,
his wife, and his whole family

into a tailspin
of depression and grief.

Papa: Police, at the time,
investigated and they determined

that this was an accident.

The man who ran over and killed
John Gotti's son,

at one point, went to apologize
to John Gotti and his wife.

I think Victoria Gotti felt that
he didn't show enough remorse,

and she did not forgive him.

And there's a story that
she went after him with a bat.

Favara knew who
he was dealing with,

and I'm sure he was frightened.

John Favara was kidnapped
from his place of business

out on Long Island
by a group of men.

A few weeks after, a few months,
the guy disappeared.

Eyewitnesses claimed they
saw him being hit over the head

and put into
the back of a car.

Favara was never seen again.

Destefano:
The story that we subsequently were able to piece together

was that Favara was killed
and that his body,

according to court records,

was dissolved in acid
in a junkyard in East New York.

Gotti, as I recall,
at the time, had an alibi.

He said he was away in Florida
when that happened.

Schumacher:
I think there's no question that the disappearance

of John Favara
sent a message to the community

that Gotti was someone
to be reckoned with.

??

For somebody to just disappear
off the face of the earth,

never to be seen again,

that had to send a chill
through the neighborhood.

He meant business.

That's where he comes
across as scary.

Who was going to mess with that?

Woman: Of such stories,
legends are born,

and John Gotti lives up to his.

??

??

Welcome back to
"Very Scary People."

By the late 1970s, John Gotti
was working his way up

the ranks of the Gambino
crime family

as a solid earner
and vicious capo,

determined to not let anything
or anyone stand in his way.

Soon, he would become the boss

of a multi-million-dollar
criminal operation.

For Gotti, it all started
in the boogie-down Bronx.

??

Feldman: John Gotti was born
on the 27th of October

in 1940 in the South Bronx.

His grandparents came over from,

as they used to say,
"the old country".

He had a troubled childhood.

Raab: His father was a laborer
who earned almost nothing.

He had 12 siblings, big family,
and his poor father

really couldn't provide
for all of them.

Gotti grew up in
a very haggard type of way.

He was embarrassed.

He claimed later that
when he went to school,

he was wearing different
shoes on each foot.

His clothes were ragged.

The other kids made fun of him.

That's when he learned
to use his fast fists,

because he had to fight his way

to get any kind of
recognition and respect.

Things improved for him
when he was just in his teens,

when his father and his mother

moved to East New York
in Brooklyn.

If you wanted to exist
in your neighborhood

and show your machismo,

you had to be part
of a street gang.

He didn't have much
of an education,

but he was smart and
and he knew how to hustle.

So got involved with people
on the street.

Raab: In one situation,
he was doing a theft.

He broke into a construction
area in the neighborhood

and he dropped a heavy piece
of equipment on his foot.

And he actually broke
one of his toes,

which gave him a limp
for the rest of his life.

Some people thought
it was a swagger,

but he obtained it
by fouling up on a simple crime.

Mafia bosses and their
lieutenants in the neighborhoods

were always on the lookout
for possible recruits,

people who were hard and tough
and would carry out orders.

And he shined in those aspects.

There's a certain
level of respect

that he wanted perhaps that,
in his life,

he wasn't really
getting it anywhere else.

Here were these guys
driving around in flashy cars,

hanging around these clubs,
attracting women.

The only chance he had,
in his viewpoint,

for success was crime.

??

Gotti, in his teens
and early 20s,

was part of a crew
that was part

of the Gambino crime family
in East New York.

And Gambino's second-in-command
was a man by the name

of Aniello Dellacroce,
better known as "Neil."

Cardinale: Aniello Dellacroce
was a very powerful individual

within the Gambino family.

Gabriel: John gets himself
fairly close to Neil,

and Neil takes a strong
liking to John.

Raab: Dellacroce liked him.

He saw him as a chip
off his own block.

Respected the activity
that John did,

respected the loyalty
that John showed,

and respected the chutzpah
that John had.

So they create a very,
very close bond.

Papa: In 1976, Carlo Gambino,

the revered boss
of the Gambino crime family

and the namesake
of the family, passes away.

So who is the successor?

Gabriel: Gambino, rather
than taking Neil Dellacroce,

who the whole Gambino family
respected and revered,

he names his cousin,
Paul Castellano,

the next boss of the family.

That just turned
everybody's stomach.

Inside of the Gambino
crime family,

there were several factions.

John, being in
the Dellacroce faction,

sort of looked at
Paul Castellano

as a weak leader.

Raab: They thought
he was too remote.

He didn't like them.

He never visited their clubs.

And all he wanted
was their dough.

Gotti and some of the people
that Gotti surrounded

himself with felt
that Paul Castellano

was not the legitimate
head of the family.

Gotti felt that
Aniello Dellacroce

should have been
the rightful heir

to the Gambino crime family.

So that created this long
source of resentment

between Gotti's people
and Castellano and his tribe.

Schumacher: At the same time,
Gotti thinks that he can become

the boss of the Gambino
crime family.

Gabriel:
Dellacroce had that ability

to keep the Gottis
of the world in check.

He was the buffer.

But when Dellacroce died,
then all bets are off.

??

Cardinale: John Gotti ...
he would make an impression

on anybody that saw him.

He had a certain aura that,

if he walked in the room,
you would notice him.

He was somebody
that would turn heads

just because of the way
he carried himself.

Had a very commanding presence.
Let's put it that way.

Destefano:
Angelo Ruggiero was one of the core members of the crew

that Gotti was a member of.

Papa: Ruggiero was one
of Gotti's best friends.

They grew up together.

They were in gangs together.

They were very, very close.

A big crisis came in 1985.

Cardinale: Angelo Ruggiero,
John Gotti's brother Gene,

and a third
defendant were charged

in a racketeering case
that involved drugs.

The trouble that Ruggiero
got into was he had a big mouth.

Papa: His nickname was
"Quack Quack,"

because they say
he liked to talk a lot.

One of the major pieces of
evidence against him was a tape.

His house had been bugged.

He's caught on tape speaking
about heroin buys,

and this was forbidden
by Paul Castellano.

The Gambino crime family,
at the time,

was into a lot
of illegal activities,

but he did not want
to be involved in drugs.

A lot of people thought
the Mafia was involved

in all kinds of drug deals,

and the fact is, historically,
they weren't

because it brought
on too much heat.

Gabriel:
Castellano becomes irate.

He's also now got to deal
with wise guys

and bosses
from other families,

who are now
putting pressure on him,

basically saying, "Hey, your guy
got us in this mess."

So now Castellano's got reason
to put pressure on.

"I need to know
what's on those bugs.

I hear you guys
were dealing babanya,

and if that's true,
we've got a problem."

Castellano wanted to get copies
of all of the tape recordings

from Angelo Ruggiero's case.

Gotti knew that
the Castellano tapes

was a probable death
sentence for him,

because it was his crew.

This would give Castellano
an excuse to kill all of them.

??

Gabriel: The summer of '85,

we got a bug
in Neil Dellacroce's house.

Neil was sick.
He's dying of cancer.

And John and Angelo
were going there frequently.

One of the visits
we capture on tape.

Dellacroce realized, "I can't
keep Castellano at bay forever."

You're going to have to show him
what's on the tape.

So it's clear that this issue
is very flammable.

There was a lot of friction,
and, at some point,

things were
going to come to a head.

??

Destefano:
December of 1985, Dellacroce passes away from cancer.

That removed the one
sort of buffer

that was keeping
the crime family

from spinning out of control
and devolving into a war.

Gabriel: John read
the tea leaves, knew his life

was in jeopardy,
feared for his crew.

Papa: He had to decide where
his loyalties were,

and they certainly were not
with Paul Castellano.

Destefano: Castellano,
if he wanted to,

could have him killed
for the drug-dealing stuff

that was going on.

Gotti realized,
"I have to move quickly.

Castellano's suspicious of me.

He's suspicious of the crew
and the drug situation.

I've got to do something."

Papa: He figured he had to move

to save his skin,
to save Angelo Ruggiero's skin.

Gotti decides
that Castellano has to go.

Schumacher:
I think he believed that he was the best person for that job.

He really wanted to run
the Gambino crime family

the way he thought
it should be run.

Feldman: Gotti felt very
strongly that that was the time

to make a move on
and to replace, I.E.,

kill, Paul Castellano.

Gotti was very, how should
I say, full of himself.

He thought he was
the embodiment of the Mafia.

Schumacher: If someone
is going to kill a Mafia boss,

you have to get the permission
of the commission

in order to do that.

In this case, there's a risk.

??

Once John Gotti makes a decision
he's got to kill his boss,

that's no light decision.

There are a lot of rules
in organized crime.

The cardinal rule is,
you don't kill the boss.

You don't take out the boss
of a crime family

unless you're sanctioned.

You have to get the permission

of the commission
in order to do that.

Because if you don't have that,
then everybody's fair game.

Papa: John Gotti
was hatching a plot

without the approval of
the other families in New York

to bump off Paul Castellano.

It was kill or be killed.

Raab: Gotti showed some
actual brilliance,

how he arranged, engineered
the murder of Paul Castellano.

Destefano:
He needed certain alliances with certain people,

so Angelo Ruggiero
approached Sammy Gravano,

who was a well-respected
member of the crime family,

a good earner
in the construction business,

but had a reputation for being
a brutal guy, a killer.

Feldman:
Sammy Gravano, or, as he was known in the family,

Sammy "The Bull" Gravano,
was a tough guy.

He was somebody who, later on,

admitted to having no issues
at all killing people

if he thought that that was
something that needed

to be done for the family.

Schumacher: He was a kind
of a mastermind

of how to make
these things happen

so that they were
done efficiently,

with minimal witnesses,

so they could
all get away with it.

Gotti sent his right-hand man,
Angelo, and he had told me ...

he said, "Sammy," he says,
"We're going to take out Paul."

Schumacher:
And Sammy Gravano was all in.

??

Feldman: The word had reached
John Gotti that Paul Castellano

was going to have dinner at the
Sparks Steak House in Manhattan.

And the decision was made

that that would be
the perfect time to kill him.

Papa: Here it is,
it's a winter night.

It's a week or so
before Christmas.

Gabriel: John and Sammy
had put a crew together

and were very careful
in who they selected.

Only about 11 people
involved in this hit.

Raab: Almost nobody knew
who the target was

until the very day
of the murder.

Destefano: The plan
was well-choreographed.

All the shooters gathered down
by Madison Square Park

in Manhattan.

Raab: Gotti had this whole hit
crew dressed in the same way ...

long raincoats
and wearing Russian fur hats.

This, of course, was done to
make identification problematic

later for eyewitnesses.

They were given
their assignments,

and they went uptown.

They were told, "Kill them.

And if it means
you have to die there,

then die there with them.

Die there in a gun battle
with the cops.

Do not back off of this hit."

Destefano:
Close in time to this,

Castellano was coming in
from Staten Island,

visiting his lawyer,

and then had a dinner date
at sparks restaurant.

Paul Castellano left his
attorney's office in Downtown

or Midtown Manhattan.

Gabriel: Tommy Bilotti,
who's Paul's underboss ...

he's driving Paul
in Paul's town car.

Raab:
They didn't have a bodyguard.

Neither was armed.

He was just so certain
of his security

that no one
would dare oppose him.

And that shows you
his fatal mistake.

Destefano: The streets were
packed with a lot of people,

which was another thing
the planners figured,

that may be easy to blend in.

Gabriel: So, you had
four primary shooters

that were going
to attack the car,

and then you had shooters
strategically placed

around corners in case

they tried to get away
or whatever.

[Walkie-talkie chirps]

Feldman: Gotti and
Sammy "The Bull" Gravano

were witnessing this from a car
just across the street.

Gabriel:
Sammy's got a gun, so he's kind of a backup shooter.

And they're positioned
kind of as the lookouts

to give the shooters a heads-up

if they were to see
Paul coming down.

Sammy's sitting there
with a walkie-talkie.

You know, suddenly,
they notice Paul's car

pulling up right past them
and stopping at the light.

They're just praying
Paul doesn't look over,

because he would
recognize them in a heartbeat.

Gravano: And I said, "John,
they're right next to us."

And I told John,
"If he turns in our direction,

I'm going to start shooting
right here and now."

Gabriel: Light changes, and
Sammy radios to the shooters,

"Hey, they're pulling up
right now.

So everybody get ready."

Feldman: So, when
Paul Castellano and his driver

showed up at the
Sparks Steak House in Manhattan,

they got out of the car, and ...

as soon as those doors opened,

Gotti's shooters
were right on the scene.

Papa: Before you know it,
numerous shots are fired.

And these two men
were dead in the street.

??

Gabriel: It went off as planned.

Once they confirm
that they were dead,

these guys calmly walked into
the crowd, disappeared.

According to Gravano,

he and John watched
the shooting take place

and then drove by it

and saw that Bilotti
and Castellano were shot

and then drove away.

Raab: They both died
at the scene. No chance.

They never even bothered
taking them to a hospital.

They went right to the morgue.

Destefano: Of course,
it's pandemonium on the street.

The shooting.
There's two bodies.

On the curb is Castellano,
who was clenching his gloves

in his hand, mouth open,
blood all over the place.

Feldman: The killing
of Paul Castellano

was not only a big deal
in the Mafia world,

it was a big deal
in the general public.

This was an execution
in the middle of New York city.

Papa: What happened?
Why did this happen?

What was going on?
Who did this?

A mob boss taken out in broad
daylight in Midtown Manhattan,

and, basically,
nobody saw anything.

Cardinale: It was huge.

Every single newspaper
in New York

had it on the front page.

Papa: To the general public,
this was scary.

It was titillating.

It was real tabloid fodder.

And New Yorkers
really eat that up.

Destefano: Everybody's figuring,

"Okay, are we going to see
a war on the streets now?

What's going on?"

This is a major, major hit.

Papa: This moment changed
the trajectory for John Gotti.

The Paul Castellano killing
really catapulted

John Gotti into the forefront.

Destefano: Gotti, overnight,

became the premier gangster
in the Gambino family.

Papa: This now becomes
this power vacuum

in the most powerful
crime family in New York.

And John Gotti was stepping into
that void and taking control.

Destefano:
There was a meeting of the captains in the crime family,

and Gotti was voted in.

Raab: So, here he is,
in his 40s ... he's now the head

of the most powerful
crime family in America.

??

Feldman: Once John Gotti
becomes the head,

what emerges is
a very unprecedented

and very public head
of a mob family.

Schumacher: Ultimately, Gravano
becomes Gotti's underboss,

running a lot of
the day-to-day operations

of the Gambino crime family.

Raab: John Gotti was truly
a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Destefano:
The press romanticized him, glorified him.

John Gotti was the number-one
target for the government.

Man: John Gotti stands out
as the most powerful leader

in organized crime.

Schumacher: In order
to get recordings,

they needed to be inside
the Ravenite Social Club.

To try to get him to
incriminate himself, basically.

Gabriel: We got to find a way
to put him in jail.

Up until Paul Castellano's
brutal murder,

John Gotti was barely on
federal investigators' radar.

But after he carried out
the ruthless hit

and took the throne
as the Gambino's godfather,

Gotti became
public enemy number one.

Almost instantly, he transformed
into the Dapper Don,

running a violent
criminal enterprise,

all while wearing
a suit and a smile.

In the end, it would
take a complex

and lengthy FBI operation

to finally stop him,
in part 2 of "John Gotti."

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.
Thanks for watching.

Good night.

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