Oct 20, 2006 1:18 pm US/Pacific
Government Drops Case Against John 'Junior' Gotti
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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The government has decided to drop its current effort to prosecute John A. "Junior" Gotti.
AP
There will be no fourth retrial for John A. "Junior" Gotti, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia announced on Friday morning.
In a statement, Garcia said, "The Government has concluded that a retrial of defendant John A. Gotti on the pending indictment is not in the interests of justice in light of the three prior hung juries in the case. Accordingly, yesterday we submitted a proposed Order which the Court has signed and which ends this prosecution. I would like to thank and commend the many dedicated law enforcement agents and prosecutors who labored so hard and so well on this case."
In late September, Gotti dodged conviction for a third time when a jury could not decide if the 42-year-old was a criminal or a new man who long ago gave up the mob life.
The key issue in the case was whether Gotti quit the Gambino crime family as he claims before July 1999. If so, a five-year statute of limitations would have expired before prosecutors brought new racketeering charges in 2004.
Gotti was also accused of ordering two 1992 attacks on radio talk show host Curtis Sliwa, including one where he was shot twice before escaping out the window of a taxi rigged to keep him trapped inside.
Prosecutors have said Gotti was retaliating for on-air attacks against his father, John Gotti.
Sliwa looked stunned after the mistrial in September and said he had "the most miserable feeling in the world" as he sat in the back row of spectators, his red Guardian Angels jacket crumpled beneath him.
Later, he learned that jurors had concluded unanimously that Gotti was responsible for a 1992 shooting that left him nearly dead, but could not convict him because they could not agree whether Gotti quit the mob in 1999.
Three anonymous jurors who spoke to reporters afterward said four of the 12 jurors were not convinced Gotti was still part of a racketeering conspiracy that included extorting businesses and witness tampering.
The first jury to consider the case, last September, came within a vote of convicting Gotti. The second one was divided after a new defense team forced them to decide whether Gotti had quit the mob in 1999.
The focus of the first two trials was the allegation that Gotti ordered a kidnapping of Sliwa, who was shot twice. He later recovered and resumed his attacks on the Gotti family.
Gotti's father was labeled the "Teflon Don" for his repeated ability to beat the rap in court before federal prosecutors regrouped a final time to win a conviction for racketeering that sent him to prison in 1992 for life. He died there in 2002.
(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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