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Peter Gotti indicted for alleged plot against 'Sammy the Bull'
From Ronni Berke
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The brother of the late Gambino crime boss John Gotti was indicted Monday on federal charges of conspiring to murder mob turncoat "Sammy the Bull" Gravano. Peter Gotti, whom U.S. Attorney James Comey referred to as "the boss of the Gambino organized crime family," was indicted with five other alleged members and associates of the Gambino family. Others named in Monday's indictments included Louis Vallario, Frank Fappiano, Edward Garafola, Thomas Carbonaro and John Matera. Those five had previously been charged in indictments alleging a wide-ranging racketeering conspiracy and other offenses, including murder, extortion, loan sharking, bribery, witness tampering and illegal gambling. Monday's superseding indictment merged the charges previously brought against Gotti's co-defendants. The indictment alleges that from about October 1999 to about May 2000, Peter Gotti participated, along with Garafola and Carbonaro, in a conspiracy to murder Gambino "underboss" Salvatore Gravano -- "in order to maintain and increase their respective positions in the Gambino organized crime family." The indictment also alleges that from about 1991 to about April 2003, Gotti, along with his co-defendants, conspired to extort various construction contractors in the New York City area. If convicted of the charges in the superseding indictment, Gotti could face a maximum sentence of 70 years in prison. His attorney, Gerald Shargel, could not immediately be reached for comment. A former sanitation worker, Peter Gotti currently is in custody awaiting sentencing on other federal racketeering charges. In March Gotti and six others were convicted in a separate racketeering case heard by a Brooklyn federal jury. In the earlier case, Gotti was accused of taking control of the Gambino family and carrying out an extortion scheme that stretched from New York City's waterfront to Hollywood, according to Reuters. Among witnesses was actor Steven Seagal, who testified he had been threatened by a Gambino captain. Gotti's brother John, who was jailed for life in 1992, died last year in a prison hospital a week after Peter Gotti was indicted in the Brooklyn case. Peter Gotti became head of the Gambino family after his nephew and John Gotti's son, John "Junior" Gotti, was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison in a 1999 plea bargain for racketeering and other crimes, according to Reuters. Peter Gotti and his co-defendants will be arraigned on the superseding indictment charges on Wednesday. In 2002 Sammy Gravano was sentenced to 19 years in prison for his role in an Ecstasy drug ring, Reuters reported.
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