Teflon Junior Don

Regular readers of this blog, which I peg at about zero so far, know that I am an avid WW2 fan, who reads endless books concerning the goings-on in Europe from about 1939 to 1945, when a certain Austrian with a small mustache and a postman's hat ranted and raved and frothed at the mouth until his guns and tanks took over for his vocal cords.
I am also an avid reader of books about the Mafia. I have probably read 'em all, with one proviso: I only read books that concern the New York mob. Just like the Asian theater of World War 2 holds little interest for me, so too do the workings of OC outside the Tri-State area. In the case with the Japanese I really can't explain my lack of war-time interest. With the mob, it might have to do with the fact that I live in New York City (well, about a forty-minute train ride away, and I used to reside in Queens, where many Cosa Nostra members live). It could also be because New York is the mob's flagship: from a management perspective, families outside NY can be considered franchises.




Mob fans no doubt have been following the recent John Gotti Jr. trial, which, like the man's previous three trials, fell off a cliff into the land of Hopelessly Deadlocked.
Growing up in the clubs of Long Island, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, my friends and I crossed paths with Junior on numerous occasions, though none of us knew him or his posse. We just happened to frequent the same hot spots at the same time. Jr. always had a huge entourage whenever I saw him, and ordered champagne. He also had a pack of big-haired, curvy, overly madeup women around him (this was the '80s). Not that I am criticizing. My little club crew rarely if ever had women around us, but then we didn't have wads of bills the size of our fists nor did we emanate that special scent those guys wore that cannot be bottled (the scent of Mafia-style danger).
I am not going to reveal any smoking guns here. I never saw any murders. If I saw Junior do anything, it was hoist a champagne glass and make a toast.
Gotti, who admitted he was in the mob until 1999, obviously committed an array of crimes. Did he do the murders he has been accused of? I don't know; I wasn't there. I wouldn't put it past him. I do know four juries failed to find him guilty of any murders (which is not the same as them finding him innocent).
But does this mean the FBI should put him on trial a fifth time? I say no. The fact is, they don't have the goods, the sleazeball John Alite (pronounced A-Light) belongs in prison even more than Gotti does even if Gotti had done what they charged him with. And I don't think it would be possible to get an objective jury anymore no matter what people wrote on those questionnaires and said during the voire dire.
Simply put: He got away with it. Junior's retirement strategy worked, and he had a damn good lawyer by his side. That chubby little bald guy was better than a Twizzler, even. (His name was Carnesi, not Carneglia--who is a convicted mass murderer.)
I am sure there are other mobsters out there on the Feds’ radar who they can look into and actually maybe put on trial and then in prison one day. But to keep going after Gotti is sour grapes, and the people of New York are going to start to take his side, even more so than they already have. The FBI are in danger of turning him into a musclebound teddy bear of a martyr with poor eyesight. And he is not getting off scott-free remember; if it is any consolation to the LAW-ABIDERS (and who among us doesn't have a touch of larceny in his heart?) he did serve years in jail and no doubt had legal bills that would make you and I gargle Drano if we had had to pay them.
As for Junior, ‘nuff said. (At least for now.)