Nov 9, 2009 8:00 am US/Eastern
Closings Scheduled In Latest NY Gotti Trial
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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There was unprecedented turmoil in the John A. Gotti trial on Wednesday, November 3, caused by his mother, Victoria Gotti.
AP
A federal jury in Manhattan is getting closer to decision time in the two-month-old trial of John "Junior" Gotti.
Closing arguments are scheduled to begin Monday. The trial has featured government witnesses claiming Gotti killed, and ordered killings, to further organized crime aims.
Gotti has argued through his lawyer that he was never involved in any killings. He says he quit the mob a decade ago after admitting to racketeering charges.
His father, John Gotti Sr., was sentenced to life in prison for racketeering. The former Gambino boss died there in 2002.
The trial is the fourth Gotti has faced in the last five years. Three earlier trials ended with hung juries.
Last week there was unprecedented turmoil in Gotti trial.
As Judge Kevin Castel was explaining what he was going to do about two jurors who had become a problem (the jury was not in the courtroom), it was clear he was about to conclude that two women were going to be taken off the jury.
But just as he was going to make that point, Gotti's mother, Victoria Gotti, jumped up from her front-row seat and screamed, "This is a f****** railroad! There's no justice!"
Daughters Victoria and Angel and another woman, a family friend, grabbed the mother, and put their hands over her mouth, but she struggled free as court officers rushed in. "There's no f****** justice! They're the real gangsters! They're f****** liars! F*** you!"
From the defense table, her son John turned around and pleaded "Ma, don't!" Judge Castel looked on cooly while Victoria was both led and dragged out cursing and yelling.
Bad blood had been building between the two jurors for weeks: Juror #11 had written the judge a letter about #7's allegedly antagonistic behavior. The judge had tried to defuse things yesterday by giving the jury a large jar of strawberry Twizzlers, telling them to take out their frustrations by chewing or biting the Twizzlers. But after re-interviewing each of the two jurors today, the judge reluctantly admitted it wasn't working. He said he found #11 more believable, and that #7 was probably lying about wanting to get along.
But Castel said he was worried about how their presence might affect deliberations, and so he was excusing them both. He also chided the government for wanting him to press each juror with tougher questions that he said would cross the line, calling the government's request "to be charitable...naïve."
The reason why Victoria Gotti went off is that the consensus in the courtroom had been that Juror #7 may have been leaning towards the Gotti side. And, that if both were kept, there may have been a mistrial. Which could have meant the new Attorney General might have told his attorney in New York, "Can you really justify a fifth trial?" That maybe, the mother hoped, the whole thing would be dropped.
(© 2010 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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