Reputed Crime Boss Gotti, Top Aides Arrested

NEW YORK —  Reputed Gambino crime family boss John Gotti and three of his top associates were arrested Tuesday night on federal racketeering charges stemming from Gotti’s alleged takeover of the crime family following the 1985 assassination of Paul Castellano.

“No problem,” Gotti said after his arrest.

Gotti’s attorney, anticipating the arrest last week, had asked federal officials to simply let his client surrender. “We want to walk in like gentlemen,” said his attorney, Bruce Cutler.

But federal agents and New York detectives paid no heed to the request and instead Gotti was picked up around 7 p.m. at the Ravenite social club in Manhattan’s Little Italy.

“Somebody told me when I walked in here that I was gonna get pinched tonight,” Gotti said.

The arrest is the fourth in five years for Gotti, who has won acquittals in each of the previous trials.

In February, 1990, after a jury acquitted Gotti on assault charges in the shooting of John O’Connor, a carpenters union official, the so-called “Teflon Don” appeared to have truly won his appellation.