John Gotti: The Teflon Don Who Talked Too Much (Part 2)

December 12, 1989, 7:13 p.m. Above the Ravenite Social Club, in an old widow's living room, the boss of the Gambino family turns the radio up and explains why a man had to die. The FBI's microphone is in the ceiling, right above the couch. John Gotti, Part 2: the bomb under a Buick, a bought juror, the Dapper Don, the Teflon Don — and the tapes that convicted him with the one witness he never suspected: himself. New York, 1985–2002. Four months after Sparks, the Commission answers with a bomb on 86th Street. A refrigerator mechanic forgets a face in a Queens courtroom; a juror sells his vote for sixty thousand dollars; the Teflon Don walks out of a Brooklyn courthouse to yellow ribbons in Howard Beach. From the steel door of the Ravenite on Mulberry Street he summons every captain of the Gambino family in person, while FBI cameras film from up the street. Then an informant points two floors up, to Apartment 10 — and for most of a winter, a microphone in a widow's ceiling hears the boss list his dead: DiBernardo, Milito, DiBono. The arrest at an espresso table, the tapes played in a cell, Sammy Gravano's four words to the prosecutor, nine days on the stand, the riot at Cadman Plaza, and six thousand meals alone in a concrete cell at Marion. Told from the FBI's own teletypes, the federal court record and the sworn testimony of the men who were there. Castellano was on trial beside the crew of Roy DeMeo (Episode 2); the rule Gotti broke was the Commission's, the council Lucky Luciano built (Episode 1). Part 1 — the hit at Sparks — is Episode 3. Files From Hell · Episode 4 · John Gotti (1940–2002), Gambino family — Part 2 of 2. Episode 3 — John Gotti: The Hit That Made Him Mafia Boss (Part 1):    • John Gotti: The Hit That Made Him Mafia Bo...   Episode 2 — Roy DeMeo: The Cosa Nostra Butcher With 200 Bodies:    • Roy DeMeo: The Cosa Nostra Butcher With 20...   Episode 1 — Lucky Luciano: The Man Who Invented the Mafia:    • Lucky Luciano: The Man Who Invented the Mafia   CHAPTERS 00:00 Apartment 10 (cold open) 01:45 The Rule — Sparks, the vote, the Commission (1985–1986) 04:48 The Rise — the bomb, the bought juror, the Teflon Don (1986–1987) 16:02 The Top — the Ravenite, the Dapper Don, the microphone in the ceiling (1988–1990) 32:23 The Fall — the arrest, Gravano, the trial, Marion (1990–2002) 46:57 Dead or in Jail 48:32 Next time Image credit: Little Italy, New York, Christmas 1995 — photo by Jeanne Menjoulet (1995), CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., cropped and color-graded. Image credit: St. John Cloister, St. John Cemetery, Queens — photo by Renata3 (2020), CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., cropped and color-graded. Image credit: U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, Springfield, Missouri, aerial view — photo by KTrimble, CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., cropped and color-graded. Image credit: U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, Springfield, Missouri — photo by Darin House (2009), CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., cropped and color-graded. Footage credit: U.S. Courthouse, Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn (1995) — footage by James Wentzy, from the Jim Hubbard collection, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., excerpt, cropped and color-graded. Archive photographs, documents and films are used wherever they exist; some scenes are AI-generated reconstructions, marked DRAMATIZATION where a named person appears (a dead man's likeness drawn from his archive photograph; living people are never recreated). The documents read aloud are read by a narrator, never an imitation of the person quoted. No film clips, no fiction. Music: original score. Subscribe — a new episode every week:    / @filesfromhell   Next time: Carmine Galante. #JohnGotti #Gambino #TrueCrime