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He soon became a foot soldier under Carmine and Danny Fatico, reputed old- guard members of the Gambino family. Arrested several times, Gotti served a year in jail starting in 1965 for attempted burglary and three years, beginning in 1969, for a hijacking from an airport warehouse. He was not around much for the early years of his five children by his wife Victoria, the daughter of an Italian builder and a Russian-Jewish mother.
By 1968 Gotti was considered a highflyer and was working for the Gambino ^ family underboss, Aniello Dellacroce, a Mafia traditionalist whom Gotti emulated. He endeared himself to the Gambino family when, in 1973, he took part in the killing of a 6-ft. 4-in. Irishman who had supposedly kidnaped and murdered a nephew of Carlo Gambino's. Gotti pleaded guilty to attempted manslaughter and served two years in Green Haven prison.
Gotti became frustrated and angry in 1976 when Paul Castellano, rather than Dellacroce, succeeded Carlo Gambino as the family boss. Gotti reportedly thought Castellano, who was Gambino's brother-in-law and had little in common with hard-core mobsters like Gotti, was unworthy of the high position; the prudent Castellano was wary of the hot-tempered young capo. When Dellacroce died last year, Gotti was in line to become the new underboss. Castellano, however, had other ideas and seemed ready to elevate his chauffeur-bodyguard, Thomas Bilotti. Last year Castellano and Bilotti were mowed down in a brazen late-afternoon slaying outside Sparks Steak House in midtown Manhattan. The FBI believes Gotti ordered the hit, but so far no one has been arrested. Afterward, Gotti consolidated power as the head of the family.
In parts of Ozone Park, Gotti is a folk hero. He lives in Howard Beach, a few miles away, in an unpretentious, tree-shaded house. On a corner of 101st Avenue, a few blocks down from the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club, Connie, a school crossing guard, has been escorting children across the same street for ten years. "People here look up to him," she says of Gotti. "As soon as you mention his name, he gets respect. As far as I'm concerned, they're crucifying him." A young mother in a powder blue jumpsuit, who is picking up her small daughter, says of Gotti, "I think he's good for 101st Avenue. There's no riffraff around here. If it weren't for him, this neighborhood would be carried away by the drug addicts." Every year on the Fourth of July, the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club holds a picnic for the community, with fireworks, hot dogs, hamburgers and ice cream. A woman wearing red Reebok sneakers and wheeling a small baby in a stroller recalls part of Gotti's past: "He lost a son. You want to know something? I hope he gets away with it. I pray for him." In 1979 a neighbor accidentally killed Gotti's twelve-year-old son when the boy rode a motorbike in front of his car. Gotti was distraught; his wife seemed broken. A few months after the boy's death, the neighbor disappeared. Police suspect that he was stuffed into a car as it was about to be compacted.