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NEW YORK (CBS) ― Don't believe a defense lawyer's argument that John "Junior" Gotti quit organized crime with a sudden epiphany more than a decade ago, a prosecutor told a jury Monday during closing arguments in Gotti's fourth trial on racketeering charges in as many years.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Trezevant called the claim contrary to evidence. "It makes no sense," he said as he started daylong closings.
Gotti would have had to turn against hundreds of mobsters working for him and immediately stop more than a decade of "nonstop crime," Trezevant said.

"He has never, never quit that life," the prosecutor said as Gotti sat calmly at the defense table at the 2-month trial. Three others ended in mistrials.

Gotti's lawyer, Charles Carnesi, awaited his turn in front of the jury.

Carnesi has maintained that Gotti quit the Gambino family business when he pleaded guilty in 1999 to racketeering and agreed to serve five years in prison.

Just before he concluded the defense case earlier Monday, Carnesi introduced evidence to show that a fellow mobster threatened Gotti's life after hearing he had given up organized crime.

Trezevant told the jury to convict Gotti of racketeering conspiracy and two drug-related murders, saying he had made millions of dollars by creating a mob-run network of drug dealers in the 1980s that he maintained using violence, including murder.

He said Gotti joined the Gambinos in the early 1980s out of lust for power and fortune. He called him an "unrepentant street thug."

Trezevant said Gotti "embraced the violence and treachery of mob life from the very beginning."

He recalled testimony by witnesses who claimed Gotti sliced a man to death in a bar in 1983 and left, only to pop back into the bar's entrance while his victim was dying to shout, "Th-th-that's all folks," like Porky Pig.

He said Gotti later "cartoonishly" mocked the forced hanging of another man.

Gotti's father, also named John, was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted of racketeering in 1991. The former Gambino boss died there in 2002.

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.



 

(© 2009 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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