Gotti 'Thought He Was Dead Meat'

(Feb. 8) -- John Gotti Jr.'s fourth racketeering trial was a disaster for the prosecution, ending up in another mistrial. But he thought he was going to get convicted and wrote the judge at the onset of jury deliberations in November, griping about his rulings and his attorney's refusal to let him testify during trial.

"He thought he was dead meat," said one knowledgeable source, according to the Web site Gang Land News, which requested that the letter be released. "He felt that everything had gone against him and he would be convicted. That's what spurred him to write the letter."

The letter was just unsealed Feb. 2 in federal court in New York. In it, Gotti also complained about the judge not granting funding for transcripts and a decision not to allow a witness to testify.

The government tried four times in five years to convict "Junior" Gotti, the son of the late John Gotti, the boss of the Gambino crime family. Each time the juries deadlocked, resulting in mistrials. Last month, the U.S. attorney's office officially announced that it would not pursue a fifth trial.

As part of his defense in his trials, Gotti claimed he had left the mob long ago. The prosecution insisted he was lying.

"Make no mistake, I committed crimes in the past, but I left my former life behind over 10 years ago," Gotti wrote to U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel. "I have served my time and paid my debt to society (I've served over 7 years in prison; I've paid a $13,000 fine; I forfeited $1.5 million as well as 90 acres in the Poconos and a farm in upstate New York; I paid approximately $400,000 in restitution; I paid back hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes ...).

"It's been difficult to sit through this trial and listen to embellishments and outright lies," he wrote on the last page of the three-page letter.

"The government knows that most of what has been 'testified' to by their cooperators are lies. If they can honestly claim they don't know, then they have been deceived; if they do know but have chosen to ignore it anyway, then they are treacherous. Either way, the government has failed me."

Janice Oh, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in New York, declined Monday to comment on the letter.

In his letter, Gotti also explained why he refused for a couple of hours to show up for the closing arguments of his trial in November.

At the time, The New York Times reported that Gotti's attorney Charles Carnesi was surprised by his client's antics. "No one knows anything from Mr. Gotti directly," Carnesi said.

A couple of hours later, Gotti showed up in a "short-sleeved shirt and an irritated scowl," the Times reported.

In his letter, Gotti wrote:

"The reason why I did not want to show up Tuesday was because I was fed up with all of the lies and the inability to confront them head on. I had been preparing myself to take the stand this past Monday and I was committed to tell my side of the story -- the truth. My attorney refused to allow me to take the stand in my own defense. That has haunted me and I want to make it part of the record."