Gene Gotti & Gambino Family

Gene Gotti, the younger brother of John Gotti,  will be released on September 19, 2018 at the age of 72. Gene was given 50 years on July 8, 1989.  At the time he went away his older brother John was the boss of the Gambino family.  John then went away for life in 1992 and later his son John Junior took over for him.  Junior would later break all the rules by talking to the FBI and giving up Danny Marino and Joe Watts. The Garbage Man Peter Gotti, another brother of John Gotti, was even worse for the family.  

The new Gambino family is run by the Sicilian faction, but maybe Gene will fit in with them.  Gene has maintained a steady stream of visitors who speak to him on many family topics including his brothers and nephews.  Many of these men were heroin dealers like Gene, and some continue to push their poison to the masses.  Gene Gotti, Angelo Ruggiero, John Carneglia and Sal Ruggiero ran a multimillion dollar heroin empire and it was running smooth until Sal was indicted and had to go on the run.  

Sal worked with many people including mob criminal attorney Michael Coiro and criminals including Joseph Guagliano, Anthony Moscatiello, Oscar Ansourian, Edward Lino, Mark Reiter, William Robert Cestaro, Salvatore Greco, Joseph Lo Presti, Vincent Lore, Anthony Gurino and Caesar Gurino.  He would also deal with a lot of those that would go away for the Pizza Connection.   The drug cash was flowing into John Gotti's Bergin crew and Sal was an unofficial member because of the ban on drugs in the Gambino Family.  The ban is funny because Carlo Gambino profited off drugs, the Zips, the Cherry Hill Gambinos all paid him.  The new boss, Big Paul Castellano, had made a pact with Genovese Boss Chin Gigante “deal and die”  they were to not discuss it, just kill those that had anything to do with drugs.  They rightly figured that if guys were caught dealing they would be facing so much time that they would flip.  

On May 6, 1982 Sal Ruggiero and his wife boarded a Learjet in New Jersey bound for Florida where Sal was going to look at a McDonalds franchise that was for sale. The day was perfect and the sky a clear blue and over the Atlantic the jet requested permission to descend.  It descended but went into a dive straight into the ocean where it killed everyone aboard.

Angelo lost his brother (who had been a fugitive running his drug empire while on the run) and also his partner.   Angelo and Gene had to move fast because the Feds identified Sal’s body and they would be looking for his hideouts.  Sal had died when they had just gotten a large load of heroin.  Angelo started cleaning out Sal’s hideouts but according to the lawyer, turned crew member Michael Coiro Gen found the heroin.  This would all come out because the FBI had been watching Angelo because of his connection to the Gotti’s.  They had wiretaps and bugs in his home and they were listening when all this was going down.

Angelo was able to get a copy of an affidavit in support of a warrant to bug his home.  It came via a Genovese soldier and Angelo knew that he and Gene Gotti would soon be indicted for running Sal’s heroin business. It all came crashing down on August 8, 1983 when the FBI arrested Angelo, Gene Gotti and others for drug dealing.  It was soon learned that the tapes had provided the evidence the FBI needed to bug Gambino Boss Big Paulie’s home on Staten Island.

Paulie ordered his ailing underboss Neil Dellacroce to have have Angelo turn over the tapes so he could hear them.  The Gotti brothers Gene and John knew that the tapes would mean certain death for all of them.  They held off by making up excuses and when Dellacroce died and Big Paulie did not attend his funeral they used that to fuel the fire.  They started planning to murder Big Paulie.   On December 16, 1985 John Gotti struck, killing Big Paulie and his underboss Tommy Bilotti in Midtown Manhattan.  John Gotti was now the Gambino boss and he upped his brother Gene to Capo of his Bergin crew.  Gene would be found guilty of drug dealing in 1989, almost 7 years after his arrest. He went through 3 trials where jurors were threatened and bribed until he was given 50 years.  The Gambino family as it is stands today is no long Gene’s family.

Lenny & Little Nicky: Then & Now

Little Nicky

"I am living the life that I wanted." - Little Nicky

Those were his words to his associate one day in the nineties in Brooklyn, New York. That was then: when he was on the street as a Capo in the Gambino Family, soon to be acting Boss. Fast forward to today: he is 73 years old living in the FCI Loretto with 9 more years inside. It has been a long run for Nicky who was born in the East New York, Brownsville area of Brooklyn in 1940. He and his brother Joseph aka JoJo made their name and money in gambling. JoJo is rumored to be a street craps whiz who made the Gambino craps games profitable. The games lost money until JoJo stepped in and ran them right.




Nicholas became known as Little Nicky because of his diminutive size 5 foot 5 inches tall and weighing a soft 170lbs. But he was no push over. Little Nicky was always in gangster mode, he was gangster 24/7. He was proposed to be made in the late 70's but he told the powers-that-be that he could not do it unless they made Lenny DiMaria because he would not be where he was without Lenny. So they made them both and soon Little Nicky had a vast gambling network in Brooklyn and Queens that included bookmaking, numbers, a horse room and shylock. He became a huge earner for the family and when his Capo Fat Andy went on the lam and joined a biker gang, he and Lenny reported directly to Neil Dellacroce, the legendary underboss of the Gambino Family. This made those in power take notice of what he was doing and the cash he was able to generate.He liked to recruit young guys, guys that he saw some criminal spark inside. So he gathered a good crew of capable guys like Mike Yannotti and he was soon a powerhouse in the family that the higher ups looked to when they needed work done.

Lenny

Leonard "Lenny" DiMaria has been Little Nicky's right-hand man for 30 years. He started off not as a criminal but as a train conductor working on the Long Island Railroad. He soon became a trusted Gambino associate along with Little Nicky. Lenny was the opposite of Little Nicky who was always gangster, Lenny is more gregarious and likeable. When Lenny and Little Nicky were on trial in 1985 with John Gotti, Lenny would stand up and thank each witness for coming to the trial. They were ultimately acquitted of all charges but years later turncoat Sammy Gravano would tell the Feds that he bribed the jury Foreman to secure an acquittal.When Gene Gotti, the drug dealing brother of John Gotti, went away on Heroin dealing charges, Little Nicky and Lenny started running his crew. Lenny was always more well-liked than Little Nicky among the rank and file.They built up their gambling network and soon they had a huge shylock business thriving in New York. Little Nicky sent Lenny and two other Capos down to Florida where they formed the South Florida Crew. They were huge earners and did well until it all came crashing down.
A lot of guys in the Mafia like to claim they have nothing to do with drugs and a lot of the public buys this load of crap. Little Nicky had guys all over the five Boroughs shaking down drug dealers. He used to have them give cash as a Christmas gift or throw it into the kitty for the crew but he knew exactly where the cash was coming from. When dealers who had been ripped off or extorted came to him he would get back their drugs from his guys and get a taste of the cash. He liked to play both sides against each other. One thing he did know was the rules of La Cosa Nostra and he knew how to use them to his advantage. When his guy Mikey Y shot a guy with the Lucchese Family and left him for dead in a Brooklyn parking lot, he had a sitdown with the Lucchese family. It was during that sitdown that he told the Lucchese guys that if they couldn’t get a hold of their guys to call them off, they would be dead. If you were in his crew and he didn't like you, he would still go to bat for you because he didn't want to appear weak or wrong. He would close his social clubs and take a meeting late at night off parkways around New York. He used to drive by his guys’ places and check up on them at night.

Mikey Y

Little Nicky ordered the killing of Lucchese associate Robert Arena because he said Robert had something to do with the killing of one of his crew members. Robert also stole a large amount of marijuana from a dealer associated with his crew and when ordered to give it back he refused. Robert Arena would be gunned down in his car in the Mill Basin area by Mikey Y along with a friend named Tommy Maranga. Nicky would plead guilty to taking part in planning the killing. Nicky became a Capo after John Gotti went away. He was on the ruling panel for awhile and then he was tapped as boss. He finally had made it to where he dreamed of being, but it was not to last. He had befriended a trucking guy named Joey V while locked up, but when Joey V was faced with new drug charges he decided to wear a wire. Nicky was boss for a week. When he gets out he will find that the family has changed and he will be in his 80's, Lenny today is free and completing his parole.