01x02 - Episode 2

[bunniefuu]

[Sal Polisi] Many mob guys

have little nicknames

because of something they've done

or something they do.

It's like they like bananas,

they call him Joey Bananas.

With me, I was labeled Sally Ubatz

because in Italian,

it's pazzo, crazy, pazzo.

Because I would do outrageous things.

When I was 31 years old,

I got a mob assignment

to go to Florida

and send a message to this guy

who was sleeping

with a made member's wife.

So I flew down to Florida.

I met a guy down there.

He gave me a UPS uniform, a UPS truck,

and I went to the house.

I knocked on the door.

I was delivering a little box.

The girlfriend opened the door.

I pushed her to the side,

went in there, put a knife to his throat,

and tied him down to the pool table.

[man on recording]

[Polisi] I took his pants off.

[man on recording]

And then I sliced his ba*ls.

[slicing sound]

It was nothing personal. It was business.

[tape rewinding]

[Anthony Ruggiano Jr.]

There's three cardinal rules of the mafia.

Don't go with another made member's wife,

don't sell drugs, and never cooperate.

[man on recording]

[Ruggiano] I mean,

that's a death sentence.

Back then,

it was the worst thing you could do.

[man on recording]

[Polisi] You had to keep

everything secret.

You're never allowed

to reveal any information

and become a rat or a stool pigeon.

[man on recording]

[Andrea Giovino]

If you rat, you get tortured.

They cut pieces of you and burn you.

They make them suffer.

[man on recording]

[Polisi] Many times,

the mob would leave the body out.

They wanted to show an example

of disrespect and disloyalty.

[Gotti on recording]

The reputed head of one of the nation's

largest organized crime families

is on trial in New York.

The prosecutors charge that John Gotti

has m*rder*d his way

to the top of the mob.

[people clamoring]

[Diane Giacalone]

My name is Diane Giacalone.

During the 1980s,

I was an assistant US attorney

in the Eastern District of New York.

We investigated organized crime,

we investigated drug cases,

hijacking cases, pretty much everything.

And in 1985,

we filed our case against John Gotti

and eight members of the Gambino Family.

The charges were m*rder,

ill*gal gambling, loan-sharking,

and truck hijacking.

[reporter] At stake is

his personal freedom and his reputed spot

at the top of the nation's

most powerful crime family.

[George Gabriel]

As we're focusing on John,

and we're evolving

as to how we're gonna attack the case,

suddenly, we get word

that Diane's case was coming.

I mean, we were all a little surprised.

[Jim Kossler] The FBI didn't have anything

to do with that investigation.

We were investigating Gotti separately.

So there was a lot of conflict over this.

[Giacalone] We were the only ones

with a case.

So we were the ones on the line

to bring him down.

We thought we had

more than enough evidence

to convict John Gotti and his crew.

[reporter] The charges cover

an 18-year period

when Gotti was a Mafia capo,

before he became family boss.

If convicted, Gotti could face

20 years in prison.

[reporters clamoring]

[Eric Shawn] Outside the court,

it was a circus.

This frenzied, electric atmosphere.

I'd never been in a trial that had

this kind of national media attention.

We had a trial with incredible characters.

We had John Gotti.

You're the new head of the family?

My family. My house, wife and kids.

- That's the only family?

- [woman] How about the Gambino family?

[Nevins Taylor] We had Diane Giacalone.

[reporter] Some prosecutors

didn't want the case.

One did, Diane Giacalone.

A girl from the neighborhood

who went after bad guys.

- [man] Morning, Mr. Cutler.

- Good morning.

[Nevins Taylor]

We had John Gotti's lawyer, Bruce Cutler.

- [reporter] Who do you represent?

- I represent John Gotti.

[Nevins Taylor] A boy from Brooklyn

who was obviously in love

with this man, John Gotti.

Bruce Cutler. It's comical.

I think he wanted

to f*cking be John Gotti.

He dressed like John Gotti,

and he'd shake our hands

and kiss us on the cheek like a wise guy.

[Nevins Taylor] And we had a string

of other excellent defense attorneys

who defended their clients.

[Susan Kellman] I'd have to say,

if I have one rule of thumb,

it's I really never ask

the client what happened,

because, frankly,

I don't really give a f*ck.

What's important to me

is what the government says it can prove.

And that's what being

a defense lawyer is about.

[Michael Shapiro]

My name is Michael Shapiro,

and September of '85, I was 35 years old,

working on the Gotti case.

The primary charges were RICO charges.

RICO is Racketeer Influenced

and Corrupt Organizations Act.

The beauty of RICO charge

from a prosecutor's perspective

is that you can use crimes

for which

there have already been convictions.

The defense team knew that the government

had never lost a RICO case.

The Gotti case, one of the charges

was the k*lling

of Jimmy McBratney in Staten Island.

Gotti had pleaded guilty.

He did prison time on that charge.

So, the only question for the jury was

was that k*lling and the other charges

under the RICO indictment

in furtherance of the enterprise

of the Gambino organized crime family?

And that was what Diane Giacalone

set out to try to prove.

I'm a young guy,

only on the job five years.

I've got a lot of, as the saying goes,

piss and vinegar in me.

I'm sitting in the back row of the court.

John stands up, and he's looking around

the courtroom, and he sees me,

I'm not a small person,

and says, "Hey! Who are you?"

So, you know, I kind of stood up,

and I did one of these.

I said, "Are you talking to me?"

He goes, "Yeah, who are you?"

I said, "George Gabriel."

"I'm on Bruce Mouw's squad. Just,

you know, here to kind of observe and"

"Well, you go tell that Bruce Mouw

that I'm gonna come home.

I'm beating this rap."

I go, "Oh, okay."

"Tell you what. If you do,

I'll come by and congratulate you."

[Mary Murphy] At the time, I didn't know,

and I don't think a lot of reporters knew,

the FBI didn't want Giacalone

to be doing this case.

So there was this tension.

When Diane Giacalone brought charges

against John Gotti and his crew,

in that crew was a man

named Willie Boy Johnson,

who was a Gotti loyalist.

He'd been with Gotti since they were boys.

But he was also a "rat."

[Gabriel] Willie Boy Johnson

had been cooperating with the FBI

for years, but nobody knew.

We didn't share that with anybody.

We went to Diane Giacalone,

asking her not to indict him.

And I would tell my bosses,

"If we don't do something

and put a stop to this,

he's gonna get k*lled by Gotti

if it becomes known

that he was an informant."

[Giacalone] Willie Boy Johnson

was not just an FBI informant.

He was also a violent criminal.

He was intimately involved

in some of the most violent conduct

that the crew committed.

And we could not separate him

from the indictment

and still bring the case.

In the courtroom,

Diane Giacalone, to the horror of the FBI,

explained to the judge that

We wanted to remand one of the defendants

because he had been an informant

for 15 years.

[newscaster] They call him "Willie Boy."

He is sitting next to John Gotti,

but he is far, far from close.

[Murphy] It was pretty shocking.

Gotti was sitting right next to him.

The way it was revealed was terrible.

Willie Boy was around for years.

He was a big earner.

He knew all the five families.

[Frank O'Hara] After they picked

Willie Boy up off the floor,

John Gotti gave him a look

that would have k*lled him.

You wouldn't wanna take

a life insurance policy out on him

if you were an insurance company.

We took no pleasure in what we did,

but we did what was necessary.

We knew

that his life expectancy was not good.

When we have an informant,

part of our pitch is,

"We will not disclose your identity."

Diane Giacalone threw that out the window.

[reporter] In court today,

Assistant US Attorney Diane Giacalone,

began her opening statement

by telling the jurors

[Murphy] Diane Giacalone gave

a pretty good opening statement

in that trial.

Quite impressive.

We started with the McBratney homicide,

because it showed

John Gotti's rise to power.

Then I talked about the various elements

of the indictment.

So we went through the loan-sharking,

we went through the hijackings,

we went through the gambling.

[reporter] Giacalone claimed

several crimes,

for which other defendants in this trial

have already served time,

were not isolated incidents

but part of a conspiracy

to work together to commit crimes.

When I sat down, I felt I did my job,

and I felt pretty good about it.

That was probably the last time

I felt at home in that courtroom.

[reporter] Gotti's attorney, Bruce Cutler,

immediately went on the attack.

Bruce Cutler crucified her.

[Shapiro] Bruce told the jury

to think of the charges as a rancid stew.

And the reason I remember that

is I wrote it for him.

He said, "You can't make a stew

that anyone is gonna swallow

out of all of these rotten ingredients,

no matter how long you cook it."

And, in fact, in his opening statement,

Bruce Cutler just

Just picked up the indictment

and basically said

it was a piece of garbage,

and he tore it in half,

which was extremely dramatic.

The jury could not take their eyes

off him, and then he just

Threw the indictment in the trash can

in the courtroom and said

"That's where this indictment belongs,

in the garbage can."

Talk about a flourish. Talk about drama.

It was a [gasps]moment.

Diane's case had a lot of cooperators

in it. Always a lot of risk in that.

We're not talking

people walking the street.

We're talking people

who are in and around organized crime.

Who else testifies in a Mafia trial?

[Polisi] I was the first witness

in the John Gotti 1987 trial,

and I was, like, the star witness.

In 1984, I was arrested

with four ounces of cocaine.

I was held on a million dollars bail.

While I was in prison in the summer

of '84, my wife came to visit me.

My two sons were outside

the visiting room, waiting.

When she left, I saw my two kids crying.

That was the moment

where I decided, "I gotta flip."

"I gotta get out of this life.

I don't wanna keep torturing them."

Finally, one day, I made a phone call.

I'm gonna work with the government.

Little did I know, two years later,

the government was gonna call me

to testify against John Gotti.

Sal Polisi had a lot of history

with the crew.

And he told it, and he told it well.

He's a smart man. He was articulate.

And then Bruce got up, and he just

I've heard the word, "Brucified,"

and it's a fantastic way to describe

how Bruce approached cross-examination.

[Polisi] Bruce Cutler, he attacked me

every day for seven days.

And he really pummeled me

and called me a lowlife, a yellow dog.

And he found out details about me,

you know, about how many girls

I had in one night,

cutting the guy's ba*ls off.

I had to admit everything that was true.

John Gotti was sitting

at the end of the defendant's table,

and he took his right hand,

and he put it on the table,

and made, like, a g*n.

And I knew what he was saying.

"We're gonna k*ll you."

[Murphy] As well as Sal Polisi,

Diane Giacalone

is counting on a few witnesses.

The paid witnesses,

witnesses who've lied in the past,

witnesses who've gotten new identities,

witnesses who've sold drugs,

witnesses who've k*lled people.

[Shapiro] They were some of the most

impeachable witnesses imaginable.

A veritable zoo of lowlifes.

James Cardinali is a key witness

against John Gotti.

[Nevins Taylor] And each of them

gets on the stand,

and one after the other is less credible.

[Shawn] Cardinali admitted

he didn't wanna be in the witness chair,

but it was better than the electric chair

in Florida, where he committed m*rder.

[Kellman] A second witness the government

called was Dominick LoFaro.

Dominick LoFaro admitted today

that he originally lied

to Federal authorities.

At first, he said he k*lled

more than 15 people.

Today he said it was only two.

We were basically being portrayed

as incompetent.

[newscaster] The government's case

against John Gotti took a beating today.

A bank robber named

Matthew Traynor was on the stand.

Now he's supposed to be

a witness against Gotti.

[Giacalone] Matthew Traynor was

a problematic witness but useful.

Until I didn't trust him anymore.

He started to say things

that didn't make sense to me.

And at that point, we decided

we would not use him as a witness.

He actually testified for the defense

and said that Diane Giacalone

had tried to bribe him.

I was given the drugs I wanted.

I was given liquor.

[Nevins Taylor] He said she gave him

her panties from a bottom desk drawer,

so that he could take care of himself.

I was provided

with a kinky sexual release.

Matthew Traynor was later convicted

of perjury for his testimony.

I turned to my co-counsel and said,

"What juror in his right mind

would believe this sh*t?"

[Murphy] Traditionally, in New York,

the prosecutors publicly

do not engage with the press.

Defense attorneys,

that's what they get paid for.

Bruce knew how to engage with the press

better than any other defense lawyer

I've ever dealt with.

He knew how to use the press.

He knew how to amuse the press.

It's not nice to see you, Geraldo.

I'm not a fan of yours.

John Gotti had his own

media-spinning PR outfit

like the White House Press Secretary.

[reporter] Lawyer Bruce Cutler charged

that the government doesn't like

sharp dressers, gamblers,

people like John Gotti.

[Giacalone] I never knew

that I had a bias against sharp dressers.

I thought

I was a pretty sharp dresser myself.

Bruce Cutler was always walking around,

"The government will do anything

to put John Gotti in jail."

Cutler maintains that the government

is just out to get Gotti.

[Murphy] They're hoping the jury

will see that narrative,

the public will see that narrative,

the jurors' families

will see that narrative.

[Shawn] All this just reinforced

the image of John Gotti

[man] He's always been

a respectable person in the community.

and the public ate it up.

I find it very hard to believe

what they're saying about him.

What Godfather? He's just a good man.

Good evening.

This is the CBS Evening News,

Dan Rather reporting.

[Giacalone] They returned the verdict

on a Friday.

[Stasiuk] I remember exactly where I was

when I heard the verdict.

A park in upstate New York,

with my radio on, All News 88.

[Gabriel] I'm on the street

with my partner. We're driving around.

And we actually hear as the news

comes out of the radio on the car

John Gotti was acquitted by a jury

on all counts

of conspiracy and racketeering.

He was found not guilty on all counts.

[Giacalone] Disbelief,

I think, was the main feeling.

Disbelief.

I felt that I had been beaten,

physically beaten.

My body was actually sore.

The result was a major defeat

in the government's fight

against organized crime.

John Gotti strode out

of that courthouse like a star.

[reporter] How do you feel, Mr. Gotti?

[newscaster] In a six-month trial,

the government couldn't make

their case stick.

[reporter] Were you surprised?

I was flabbergasted.

It was the first successful defense

of a RICO case.

[man] God bless America.

The vindication was proper,

and we both expected it.

And we're very pleased we got it.

[Giovino] When the not-guilty verdict

came in,

people were saying,

"Bruce Cutler, he's the best attorney."

No, it wasn't Bruce Cutler.

It really wasn't Bruce Cutler.

The case was beat

because somebody paid the juror $60,000.

[reporter] Jurors then taken home

by federal marshals in limos.

[Polisi] I told Diane Giacalone,

"I cannot believe

that you got the jurors getting in a limo

and driving all over Brooklyn,

dropping 'em off."

"You think the mob is stupid?

They're following them."

"John Gotti's gonna pay somebody off."

And she said, "Sal,

you're watching way too much television."

And I laughed.

You know, when he got acquitted,

I go, "Yeah, he pulled it off."

[reporter] John Gotti had a lot

to smile about,

as he picked his way

through the cameras outside his home.

[Giacalone] I didn't find out till later

that there was a compromised juror.

There were many signals I missed.

I missed the fact

that John Gotti never was nervous.

Never.

He was just as cheery as could be.

He knew that he could not be convicted.

And so what would have been

an extraordinarily risky defense

for any other defendant

was just sport for him.

When the verdict came in "not guilty,"

it was a big party.

["Blue Monday" by New Order playing]

[Gabriel] I turned to my partner and said,

"Let's head

to the Bergin Hunt & Fish Club."

And the place was a mob scene.

I spot John Gotti.

I walked straight up to him and said,

"You probably don't remember me.

I'm George Gabriel."

"I told you I'd be here

to congratulate you. Congratulations."

"I'll be seeing you."

And I turned around

and got back in the car, and we left.

[people clamoring]

You know, after that trial, he got a boat.

And on the back of the boat,

he named it "Not Guilty."

[reporter] The government says

John Gotti is a cold-blooded k*ller,

perhaps the most ruthless

and powerful mob boss in America.

[Shawn] Gotti became a paparazzi subject.

[reporter] Then why is the guy so popular?

Tell me how do I feel ♪

Tell me now how do I feel ♪

[Shawn] He went from being

the criminal mob boss

to the New York American celebrity.

[reporter] Recently,

Gotti made the big time.

[Giovino] Time magazine

commissioned Andy Warhol

to do a portrait of Gotti

that would be on the cover.

There are heroes

who do great things for our country,

and they're not on the cover

of Time magazine, but a mob boss is.

[Maury Povich] Mr. Gotti is almost

as famous for his sartorial splendor

as for his reputation as a crime overlord.

[Ruggiano] That's when

he got the nickname.

The man they call "The Dapper Don."

Because of Gotti, we were movie stars,

because people wanted to be like us.

[dance music playing]

[Ruggiano] The celebrities wanted

to hang out with us.

I'm blowing coke with Andy Warhol.

I'm blowing coke with David Bowie.

They trusted us, number one, they knew

we weren't gonna call up the magazines.

They knew we had good coke.

[Giovino] It was great

because you're around so much money,

excitement, prestige, glamour.

[Ruggiano] I was with him one night.

Brooke Shields stuck her phone number

in his pocket in Club A,

and he ripped it up.

I told him, "What the f*ck are you doing?"

He goes, "She's my daughter's age."

I said, "Give me that number."

Okay, we're back with a prank

on America's most famous

alleged Godfather,

New York's Dapper Don John Gotti.

[O'Hara] When you see him on TV,

when he's wearing his $2,000 suit,

his hair is perfect,

people see him, they love him.

He's a star.

But behind closed doors,

he's a ruthless k*ller.

And look what happened to the guy

who had the job before him.

See what a high-stress job can do to you?

[police siren wailing]

John Gotti is two for two

in the win column.

[Stasiuk] The Diane Giacalone trial

was primarily based

all on informant testimony.

So the next case was gonna

have to use electronic surveillance

where John Gotti himself

was intercepted in many conversations.

We still had the bug evidence

from the Bergin Hunt & Fish Club.

And we had tremendous conversations.

We still had every intention

to make our own case.

[Ron Goldstock] We had conversations

that no one else could possibly have.

And so we were competition for the FBI.

And that meant the FBI

needed to step up its game.

[Gabriel] The FBI has yet to bring

a case against John Gotti.

But we knew the crimes

he was responsible for,

and he's walking the streets.

He and everybody else knew

that the government

was gonna come back at him.

The government had no choice.

Whenever you undertake one of these cases,

you gotta work closely

with the prosecuting attorney.

In this case,

it was the Eastern District of New York.

Laura Ward was

a very knowledgeable prosecutor,

very skilled, very brilliant.

She was great to work with.

After Diane Giacalone's case,

the FBI immediately focused on Gotti.

And now we were gonna take him down.

George Gabriel was appointed

with the task of getting Gotti.

I was not gonna be in a rush.

I knew that to put this guy in jail,

if he was able to beat the feds once,

you had to be really good

at whatever your evidence was gonna be.

Had to be airtight, had to be very strong.

[Laura A. Ward] George was

on a mission to get Gotti,

but he had to get Gotti good.

While we're working the case on John,

we're surveilling him and doing our thing.

Suddenly, I get a call

from one of the squads in New Jersey.

A man was k*lled mob-style

outside his home in Brooklyn this morning.

The victim, Wilfred "Willie Boy" Johnson,

who police call a close associate

of alleged mob boss, John Gotti.

That guy's destiny was already written.

That guy was going. He was going to sleep.

[reporter] Johnson was shot several times

in the head outside his home.

[Bruce Mouw] One of the rules is

don't k*ll a guy in front of his house.

That's an insult to his wife and kids.

So, if they really hate a guy,

and wanna send a message,

they'll whack him by his house.

[Giacalone] I'm sorry he was k*lled.

I feel very sorry for his family,

but it was an inevitable end

to a life that led in only one direction.

[Shawn] The day after Willie Boy Johnson

was m*rder*d by Gotti's men

[man] Morning, Mr. Gotti.

he comes out of his house, and we say,

"What do you think of Willie Boy Johnson?

What's your opinion? What do you think?"

And he said,

"Well, we all gotta go sometime."

[Gabriel] A couple of months

into his administration,

informants started saying

that Gotti was gonna set up

his headquarters

at the Ravenite Social Club.

[Ruggiano] When John took over

the Ravenite,

he gutted it out. He built the brick wall.

He made a little small window

so you couldn't see in.

I would say he fortified it.

[Gabriel] The Ravenite's located

in Little Italy.

Little Italy has every

organized crime family hanging out there.

They've got restaurants.

They've got clubs.

It's their backyard.

So we're the outsiders.

We can't go in there

without being spotted.

Everybody in those apartments,

on the streets,

are loyal to the wise guys,

so it's very difficult to do anything.

We supply people with jobs.

On Thanksgiving, we gave out turkeys.

People grew up with us and trusted us,

and we helped them.

We helped the community.

If people came to us

for favors, we did 'em.

I'm not afraid. In fact, I feel safer.

- [man] You feel safer?

- Well, I sure do.

[man] Why is that?

My cars have been stolen

in every area but this one.

[Ward] In Ozone Park, on Mulberry Street,

we're the bad guys, not the good guys.

[Gabriel] Despite that,

you have to do your job, right?

So I had to get in my van.

I had a surveillance van.

And try and park it

to get a good position on the club.

[woman on radio] You are clear.

You get in the back with all your cameras,

and you wait

until people start showing up.

There'd be several times these guys

would be walking down the street,

and they're knocking on every van,

saying, "We know you're in there."

The hope was to try

and get a plant some place, right?

Some fixed location

that I could keep a camera

on the front of the club.

And we could be

a little bit more secretive.

[Mouw] We found this condo.

It was on the sixth floor,

about two and a half blocks away.

[Gabriel] The good news was

we had a plant.

Kind of our home base of operations.

The bad news was

it was two and a half blocks away.

I had access to the Special Ops teams.

And we got fortunate

because the Bureau had some

very high-tech equipment.

Not a lot of people knew it existed.

I didn't know it existed.

[Matt Clifton]

As a technically trained agent,

one of our primary duties was to devise,

implement, and install

surveillance devices

in order to get the evidence

to successfully prosecute

the Mafia in New York City.

We installed state-of-the-art telescopic

video surveillance equipment

that allowed us to record the activity

at the entrance to the Ravenite

and the street adjacent to the Ravenite

seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

[Gabriel] The beauty of it was you could

take video two and a half blocks away

and make it look

like I was a hundred feet away.

Even at eight o'clock at night

in the middle of winter,

you'd think it was 3 p.m.

[Mouw] The video camera from that plant

gave you beautiful black-and-white

pictures of these guys coming and going.

You'd identify who they are,

what they're wearing,

what kind of cars they came out of.

Just tremendous bonanza of intelligence.

It was mind-blowing

to have that kind of technology.

By '89 into '90,

the Ravenite was in full swing.

John was always there

with his administration.

[Ward] And the most incredible

and helpful thing that Gotti did for us

is every Wednesday night,

he had the capos come down

with their associates

and soldiers as a group.

[Gabriel] And it was John Gotti,

Frankie LoCascio,

Sammy Gravano.

So he basically gave us

the outline of the family.

[Gabriel] The mob is supposed to be

a secret organization.

Having everybody show up

at one place in broad daylight

is not particularly secretive.

[Ruggiano] John Gotti was a gangster.

He didn't give a f*ck about the FBI.

He didn't give a f*ck

if the FBI took your picture.

He put everybody on front street,

and he felt like,

"You're in this life, you come to see me.

You ain't gonna be afraid of the cops."

"You ain't gonna be a captain

or a wise guy and hide in your house."

"You're gonna come here

like I'm here every day."

It wasn't the smartest thing to do,

but John Gotti thought he's invincible.

[inaudible]

[Mouw] Gotti didn't stay inside the club.

What he would do, he would go out

on walk-talks around the block.

You could see the dynamics

of the hierarchy of people.

So, for example, there was a time,

John and Sammy are going for a walk.

And it starts to drizzle.

And Sammy's holding the umbrella for John.

John's not gonna hold the umbrella.

And then, you look two or three feet

behind 'em are the bodyguards,

the guys that are supposed

to stay and protect him.

Other times, you'll see if people

are coming up to greet John,

they're gonna greet John

before they greet Sammy.

So all of those are little telling factors

that give you an idea

of what the administration looks like,

the who's who,

and the closeness of some people

and/or the distance of others.

[Ward] Once we had people coming

and going, we had informants telling us

that John Gotti was in there

talking about crime.

But we had no idea what they're saying.

So, armed with that information,

we made an application

to go up on a bug inside the social club.

[Gabriel] Once we knew

we were gonna bug the Ravenite,

I'd then go back to the Special Ops guy

to figure out

how we're gonna make this happen.

[Clifton] We didn't really have

any real-time practical knowledge

of what the actual layout of the inside

of the Ravenite Social Club was.

Where were people sitting? Where was John?

Where was his lieutenants?

Where were the conversations taking place?

[Gabriel] Sometimes,

the tech guys have to go in,

kind of scan the place, figure out

what equipment they have to bring in.

Because when we would later

go back at night,

in the middle of the night, in the dark,

knowing what was in the room

and how it was configured,

it would help us tremendously.

Obviously, law enforcement personnel

can't just walk into a Mafia social club

in broad daylight.

So we had to get them

to invite us in, frankly.

And the way we did that was to do

what we called a trouble call.

Basically, place a little bit

of technical trouble

in some of the telephone capabilities

of the Ravenite,

which pre-empted

somebody in the Gambino family

to call for

a New York Telephone repairman.

But instead, they had the friendly members

of the Federal Bureau of Investigation SO1

visit their location.

I arrived off the street

as a repair service person.

When I first walked into the Ravenite,

it was very apparent

that the interior was very rudimentary.

Interestingly enough,

there was a portrait of Mr. Gotti

in the back of a room where he would sit.

[indistinct chatter]

We were able to observe

that there was some bookmaking operation

going on in there.

And they had what appeared to be

a fax machine connected to a phone line.

And in no uncertain terms,

wanted me to get the effing thing fixed

as soon as I can effing get it fixed,

they'd really appreciate it.

[distortion on line]

We were able to "fix their problem,"

quote-unquote.

And they were overjoyed.

One of the members of the crew

walked up and handed me

two brand-new, shiny $100 bills,

which being a good service person,

hard-working man, I accepted.

We left the scene.

And courtesy of the Gambino crime family,

took several members

of the SO1 technical squad out

to pizza and beer that day.

[Gabriel] Now, we had the intelligence

of where we needed to put the bug.

The Ravenite had two rooms.

John had a table in the back room

that he would typically sit at.

That's where people'd come to talk to him.

The bug had to be as close

as we could get it to that table.

[Swanson] In the 1980s,

I was a special agent with the FBI.

I was one of only six specially trained

lock agents in the country.

I had a partner, Ken Reader.

The man was brilliant with locks.

Now, what Kenny was gonna do

is he was gonna

impression a key for the Ravenite.

And impressioning is something

that's been done by locksmiths

for the last 100 years.

It's a bit of an art.

You put the key blank inside the cylinder,

and it leaves a mark, and you pull it out,

and you file it, and you keep doing that.

Eventually, you wind up

getting the key to open the door.

It normally takes about 15 minutes.

[voice on radio] 22 to Kenny.

In this particular case, with Kenny,

it took him three, four hours,

because every time the coast was clear,

Kenny'd almost get to the door

[man on radio] Eight-three-seven, 820.

and they would call him off and say,

"No, somebody's coming."

[unlocking]

But by the end of the night,

he wound up with a key, and we were ready

to go to do our break-in.

[Clifton] Once the entrance was made,

we had to surreptitiously

install microphones

and transmitters, bugs, et cetera.

We had to take great pains

in order to conceal them.

And we had to basically watch ourselves

in very, very low light

with very small flashlights in our teeth.

Finally, we did some audio tests.

[man on radio] Hey, one, two, three, four.

Four, three, two, one.

Can you hear me, Charlie?

And Charlie would come back and say

[Charlie] Loud and clear.

[Clifton] It was

a very cool orchestration.

It was an event.

Within one to two hours, we were gone.

[Gabriel] Once we get the bug,

it's exciting to get to the plant,

put those headsets on.

Listen to all of the tapes

to see if there was anything

that was usable.

[static]

There's an ice machine in the front.

- A cappuccino machine in the front.

- [brewing]

You're picking up

every sound that you can imagine.

So you know

there's a lot of conversation going on.

You're not hearing any of it.

[indistinct conversation over wire]

[Ward] I just could not believe it.

You couldn't hear a thing.

I mean, it was a complete

waste of time and energy.

[indistinct conversation over wire]

[Gabriel] If the mics are not in

the best position,

you regroup with the Special Ops guys.

You know, "Is there anything

we can do to enhance this?"

And then you gotta weigh the risk

of trying to go back in.

[Swanson] We must have entered

the Ravenite more than a dozen times

over a 14-month period,

constantly moving the mics around.

[Mouw] We readjusted the bug.

We moved it next to the table.

We moved it to the ceiling over the table.

We tried different things,

but acoustically it was just a disaster.

Too many people in a small place.

That's where it really got frustrating,

because we had the video plant.

We could see these guys coming and going.

We see the walk-talks.

We had the bug there,

but we couldn't hear squat.

[distortion over wire]

[Ward] We knew we couldn't rely

on these tapes.

We knew we had to do better.

[Stasiuk] Even though we had heard

that the FBI had their own bug up,

we still had every intention

to make our own case.

So we went back

to all our old bug conversations

recorded inside

the Bergin Hunt & Fish Club in 1986.

[Goldstock] Greg comes

to see me one morning.

He had been listening

over and over again to the Gotti bugs

and had found something

that everybody else had missed.

Greg was so excited about it.

And, uh, you have to know Greg

to appreciate this.

He wrote a note.

[Stasiuk] And I put it on his desk

that night with a Post-It

that he's gotta look at the transcript.

In the event that,

while he was going home,

he had been in an accident

and was unable to tell us the next day.

[Stasiuk] So, the conversation

was intercepted in 1986

about a labor union leader who went

to a place called Bankers and Brokers.

[Ruggiano] Bankers and Brokers

is a restaurant in Manhattan

that's owned by a wise guy

in the Gambino family.

And he had non-union carpenters

come in and fix it.

The president of the carpenters' union,

O'Connor I believe his name was,

he said, you know,

"What the f*ck are you doing?"

"You gotta use union guys."

'Cause the carpenters' union

was controlled by the mob.

So, what happens is

he took it upon himself

to go in there and have the place

torn apart after it was fixed.

The guy that owns the restaurant

is with John Gotti,

he's one of his soldiers.

So now the Gambino family has to step in.

[newscaster] A New York City Carpenters'

Union official was shot and wounded

in the lobby of the union's offices.

It had all the markings

of a gangland-style warning.

[Stasiuk] So the conversation

was very specific.

It mentioned John O'Connor.

The victim was

49-year-old John F. O'Connor.

[Gotti speaking]

Mentioned 608. The union.

Vice President of Local 608

of the United Carpenters' Union.

[Gotti speaking]

[reporter 1] Shortly before 7:00,

O'Connor walked into this building

at Broadway and 51st Street,

which houses his office.

- [Stasiuk] And mentioned that

- [Gotti speaking]

"We're gonna bust him up."

[reporter 2] O'Connor was shot four times

in the buttocks.

[Stasiuk] I listened to the recording,

and it was great. It was dynamite.

- [Gotti speaking]

- [rewinding]

[Stasiuk] We had all the elements

of a crime.

[Gotti speaking]

[Nevins Taylor] Suddenly,

we hear Gotti's been arrested.

[reporter] The Manhattan DA is bringing

m*rder conspiracy charges against Gotti,

stemming from the May 1986 sh**ting

of allegedly corrupt

carpenters' union official John O'Connor.

[Nevins Taylor] I called a source

that I had at the FBI,

and he said,

"John Gotti's not been arrested."

"If John Gotti were arrested,

I would know."

That's it, folks. That's it, folks.

[Nevins Taylor] But he didn't know.

And the reason he didn't know

is because the New York State

Organized Crime Task Force

was acting on its own,

was not working with the FBI.

OCTF wanted the publicity

of putting John Gotti in jail.

And because we couldn't make

a case fast enough,

they brought the O'Connor case

to the Manhattan DAs,

and they went forward with it.

Right now, it's almost a competition.

"They can't do it. Can you?"

[Gotti on recording]

So, all these people

were competing against each other

for the glory of prosecuting John Gotti.

[Gotti on recording]

[Ruggiano] John Gotti

was, you know, daring them,

like, "I dare you to come get me."

He was like, "f*ck you."

- You ready for this next case?

- I'm always ready.

[up-tempo music playing]