John Gotti

NEW YORK (Reuters) - John Gotti, the swaggering "Dapper Don" boss of the Gambino crime family who was sentenced to life in prison in 1992 on murder charges after years of evading the law, died at a prison hospital on Monday, law enforcement sources in New York said. He was 61. The law enforcement sources said Gotti died from complications of neck and throat cancer at a federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri. Gotti raised a mobster's life to celebrity level, with his movements chronicled by the New York tabloids, which dubbed him "Dapper Don" because of his wardrobe. Hours of FBI tape recordings and the turncoat testimony of hitman Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano led to Gotti's arrest in 1990 and his trial and conviction two years later for murder and racketeering. Gotti, the father of five, was considered America's most powerful gangster when he was arrested in 1990 and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole two years later when a federal jury convicted him of murder, extortion and obstruction of justice. "His legacy will be that he showed mob leaders of the future how not to run a crime family if you want to stay out of jail -- you don't run a crime family on Main Street or on Mulberry Street in Little Italy and have all your mobsters coming to pay homage once a week so that they can be photographed and investigated by the FBI," said Jerry Capeci, co-author of three books on the Mafia and a Web site, "Gang Land" at http://www.ganglandnews.com. "You've got to conduct it like a secret society. He began to believe he really was the 'Teflon Don' when in the first trial he bought a juror, in the second a key witness was too terrified to testify and in the third he had good lawyering," Capeci said. Authorities said his son, John "Junior" Gotti, took over as acting boss of the Gambino crime family but in a 1999 plea bargain, the younger Gotti was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison for racketeering and other crimes. In the end, Gotti was laid waste by cancer at age 61. His vast empire of crime lay in tatters; his son and heir was also behind bars and a way of life was all but disappearing. The government had undertaken an aggressive campaign to wipe out the five major crime families that controlled illegal businesses ranging from betting shops to construction companies. Isolated in a maximum security prison in Marion, Illinois, Gotti was stricken by throat cancer in September 1998 and moved to a federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri, for surgery and radiation treatments. He was returned to Marion but tests later revealed the cancer was no longer in remission and he spent the last months of his life in the prison hospital. Gotti burst into the public eye in 1985 after his Mafia boss, Paul "Big Paulie" Castellano, was assassinated on the street outside a midtown Manhattan steakhouse at the height of the evening rush hour. Gravano said he and Gotti watched the killing of Castellano, reputed head of the Gambino crime family at the time. The Castellano killing, one of the most notorious mob rubouts in history, was witnessed by several people but none would immediately admit they could identify the four gunmen. Within three weeks, a high-ranking mobster loyal to Gotti convened a meeting of the Gambino family's 20-some captains to vote in Gotti as the new boss and overlord of the New York underworld. Organized crime experts and authorities said Gotti, who was born Oct. 27, 1940, was a truck hijacker from Queens whose rise through the family ranks began after he helped kill a kidnapper in 1973. It was described as "a piece of work" for Carlo Gambino, the man who then headed the organization. The killing led to Gotti's induction as a Gambino crime family soldier. He raised a mobster's life to celebrity level. The nattily dressed don's every public move was chronicled by the New York tabloids. He dressed in trademark Italian suits, pure white shirts, handpainted Italian ties and matching handkerchiefs. He sat most days through his trials in court with a smirk on his face. In the trial that led to his conviction and life term in 1992, hours of tape recordings made by secret FBI electronic bugs were presented as evidence of Gotti's leadership in the Mafia and his crimes. Gotti was heard describing how he controlled his 200-member Mafia family -- by threatening to kill underlings who disobeyed his orders or turned "rat" and informed on others. "When 'DeeBee' (mobster Louie DiBono) got whacked ... I knew why it was being done ... he talked about me behind my back," Gotti was heard saying on the government tape. And talking about another planned murder, Gotti was recorded saying, "He's getting whacked because he challenged the administration." Gotti, who claimed to be a plumber, had lived in a relatively modest two-story house in Queens with his wife, Victoria, and their five children. Tragedy struck the family in March 1980 when their 12-year-old son was hit and killed by a neighbor's car while riding his bicycle. The neighbor disappeared shortly afterward and has never been found.