Mobster Peter Gotti, the one-time Gambino crime manager and successor to brother John”Dapper Don” Gotti, died in North Carolina where he had been serving time in prison.
Gotti, who’d been sentenced to 25 years in jail after being convicted of 2003 on racketeering and other charges, died of natural causes in the Federal Medical Center in Butner, the Associated Press reported.
The Bronx native served over 17 years behind bars and was lately seeking an early launch due to his poor health.
He was suffering from thyroid issues and was blind in one eye, Lewis Kasman, a former mobster and John Gotti confidant, told the AP.
Peter Gotti’s attorneys for years had sought to have him sprung from prison early on release.
“We are truly afraid he is dying today, he feels he is,” lawyer James Craven wrote in court documents in December 2019. “As his attorney, I am afraid this will all become moot shortly if nothing is done.”
In another bid to possess Gotti released, Craven commented that “Stevie Wonder could see” the prior crime boss wasn’t dangerous.
Kasman recalled Gotti, a former sanitation worker, as a”routine knockaround guy who did not let his title go to his mind.”
But his kindness made him ill-suited to direct the Gambino crime family, Kasman said.
“He had been trying to perform his own brother’s bidding, and he had a challenging job,” Kasman said. “A great deal of the captains were very upset with him since he wasn’t a powerful boss. The Lucchese family all over him.”
Peter Gotti served as the acting supervisor of the Gambinos from 1999 to 2002 after his younger brother, John, was sent to prison for murder and racketeering.
John Gotti died of cancer in 2002 at age 61.
Peter Gotti spent an estimated $70,000 on failed efforts to hunt down Salvatore”Sammy the Bull” Gravano after the turncoat ratted his brother out to the feds, court papers say.Gravano helped authorities deliver John Gotti down in exchange for a 1991 plea bargain.
