John "Junior" Gotti stabbed a man to death during a bar brawl 25 years ago, but his father paid an NYPD detective $10,000 dollars to make the whole incident disappear, a former member of Gotti's crew testified yesterday during Junior's federal racketeering trial.
Kevin Bonner told the court that Junior, the son of notorious Gambino boss John Gotti, "went to work" on 24-year-old Danny "Elf" Silva in 1983, the New York Post reported. The fight at the Siver Fox bar began when Silva wouldn't stop pestering the up-and-coming mob scion and ended when Gotti stabbed the 24-year-old to death in the middle of a crowded bar, Bonner testified.
Other patrons in the bar dragged Silva onto a bar stool, where he moaned in pain.
"He had blood all over," Bonner said. "He got stabbed in the belly."
Gotti and his group hightailed it to a woman's apartment in Howard Beach, where Bonner said Gotti showed "no emotion" after washing off Silva's blood in the bathroom, the Post reported.
When the NYPD launched an investigation, Gotti's father stepped in.
Bonner said neither he nor any other crew members were ever questioned by the cops afterward, with crew member John Gebert explaining that Gotti's father -- at the time a "very feared" captain in the Gambino crime family -- "was taking care of the investigation," the Post said.
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"He paid him money to kind of, I guess, make it go away," Bonner said, without naming the rogue cop.
Gotti is on trial for a fourth time, facing racketeering and drug-related charges for slayings in the 1980s and 1990s. If convicted, he could face life in prison.
The previous cases against Gotti ended in hung juries and mistrials in 2005 and 2006.
The elder Gotti died in prison in 2002.
