John Gotti grandson gets eight years in prison for dealing drugs
By Georgett Roberts and Emily Saul | New York Post | March 2, 2017
John Gotti’s namesake grandson was sentenced to eight years in prison Thursday — earning just two years on his drug rap than the Dapper Don served for a lifetime of crime before he died in 2002.
Gotti, 23, had faced 25 years to life behind bars before agreeing to the plea deal and copping to a conspiracy charge and two counts of possession and intent to sell narcotics in February.
Wearing a white sweatshirt and gray sweatpants, the cuffed 23-year-old looked out at the gallery at his family as he was brought into court.
His father, Peter, mother, and uncle John Junior. looked back.
Peter looked away as Judge Suzanne Melendez sentenced his son.
“I wish you well,” Lasak told the young Gotti, as his mother’s eyes welled with tears.
“Thank you, your honor,” Gotti responded stoically.
As he was led out, the tatted-up mob scion waived to his family. They waived back, and John Junior. blew him a kiss.
Gotti’s mom ran out of the courtroom in tears.
Unlike his grandfather, who won his “Teflon Don” moniker for repeatedly evading arrest as the head of the Gambino mafia family — but was eventually convicted in 1992, dying in federal prison at the age of 61, 10 years later — the young Gotti was arrested twice last year on various charges, including drug possession and intent to sell.
The drug-slinging mob-heir was arrested after cops raided his grandpa’s Howard Beach home in August 2016, and discovered a veritable trove of drugs and cash.
The sweep came just two months after Gotti was stopped with some 200 oxycodone pills and various other drugs stuffed inside his car console.
His distraught parents briefly addressed reporters as they left court.
“My heart is wherever he winds up,” Peter Gotti said sadly, as tears rolled down his wife’s cheeks. “Worst thing I’ve seen in my life but what am I going to do? I am a father. I love my son with all my heart.”
“We will get through this,” he added. “He will be fine, he is a strong kid. He will be fine. He will come out a much better man than he went in.”
Peter added that once Gotti’s served his time, he plans on going to college to “better himself.”
“I know what a difference he is going to make when he’s given the opportunity,” he concluded. “He will, he will make a difference.”
“I feel like a failure as an uncle,” John Gotti Jr., Peter’s brother, interjected. “I couldn’t keep him off the streets.”
“It is what it is — the Gotti name,” his uncle sighed, before taking a second to point out his nephew wasn’t a rat. “He took responsibility for what he has done.
He’s going to go to prison like a man, not like some of those government cooperators, OK?”
“He is a kid that had a problem, and then it escalated and it got out of control,” defense attorney Gerard Marrone said outside the courthouse.
“And his last name is what his last name is, and he is always walking around with a target on his back. Certain people took advantage of that target, and here we are.”
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