The Gotti Wars

March 14, 2022
In this exceptional debut, former federal prosecutor Gleeson chronicles his efforts to bring Gambino family crime boss John Gotti to justice. Gotti had been an obscure Mafioso before the 1984 murder in midtown Manhattan of his predecessor, Paul Castellano. Gleeson, a junior Brooklyn Assistant United States Attorney who was a crucial part of the team that tried Gotti in 1987 for racketeering, was devastated by his acquittal. Gleeson learned years later that the jury had been tampered with. In 1992, he got another shot at his target in a high-stakes case that followed two other acquittals of Gotti on state charges and included charges that Gotti had ordered Castellano’s murder. The prosecution had been built on extensive electronic surveillance, but got a last-minute boost when Sammy Gravano, Gotti’s underboss, agreed to testify against Gotti. Gotti’s conviction at that trial was a major blow to the mob. While the general contours of the investigations have been covered elsewhere, Gleeson pulls back the curtain to reveal intriguing information previously not made public, including his daring and risky choice not to inform his superiors of his negotiations with Gravano, out of fear that the U.S. Attorney might accidentally disclose that sensitive development. This is a must-read for anyone interested in organized crime. Agent: Kathy Robbins, Robbins Office.

March 15, 2022
A memoir from the federal prosecutor who took down the "Teflon Don" 30 years ago. Gleeson recounts a youthful yearning to be an assistant U.S. attorney, a job denied him by an ambitious Rudy Giuliani in Manhattan. For his troubles, Gleeson, accepted in the jurisdiction just across the river in Brooklyn, was soon put on a case that took on the head of the Gambino crime family, John Gotti. "Even though I was a rookie, eight months earlier I'd been assigned to prosecute John Gotti on an entirely different set of charges," Gleeson writes of one notorious hit, "so I'd already become part of the criminal world in which the murders outside Sparks were a seismic event." That first case failed for reasons the author makes clear. Gotti's second trial was on constantly shaky ground, built on insider informants who played both sides. "Just about everybody in Gotti's crew had gone to jail at least once because of information Willie Boy had passed along," writes Gleeson about one informant whose calculations didn't play out to a happy ending. The prosecutors, working with the FBI, had to be careful not to tip off the mob lawyers to the identities of these informants or to let it be known that they were listening to their quarries' conversations. Gleeson is a thorough writer, so much so that his chronicle drowns in detail, a boon for procedural adepts but less so for civilian true-crime buffs. Still, the author is admirably generous with credit where it's due, especially the fact that without his successfully turning mobster Sammy Gravano into a federal witness, Gotti might well have walked a second time. Says Gravano, memorably, "I know I have to tell youse everything, and I will....I will not hold back, and I'm trusting you not to double-bang me." Gleeson earns that trust, as this lumbering but nonetheless valuable narrative reveals. A courtroom drama that, albeit without much drama, offers a realistic portrait of how big cases are pieced together.

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Starred review from April 1, 2022

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) Gleeson recounts the two times he prosecuted New York mob boss John Gotti. The first trial, in 1987, where Gleeson served on the team as a new AUSA, ended in a not guilty verdict. Gleeson had another shot at Gotti five years later, and this time the prosecution prevailed. Notably, at the second trial, defendant-turned-witness Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano broke Omert� (the mafia code of silence), which was unheard of in mob circles. Readers may be daunted by the four-page cast of characters, but Gleeson's writing is so compelling and organized that the list of names is almost unnecessary. He leaves almost nothing out and unabashedly admits his own missteps along the way. Gleeson has crafted this retelling as carefully as he prepped the two cases. His description of the politics behind the scenes and his interactions with the likes of U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr are icing on the cake. Gleeson describes going on to serve as a federal judge; he is now in private practice. VERDICT Do we need yet another book on Gotti? Gleeson answers the question with a resounding yes.--Karen Sandlin Silverman

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