That's stone cold. A day after John "Junior" Gotti complained about the agony of kidney stones, a judge ruled yesterday that the Mafia scion must remain jailed until his fourth racketeering trial gets underway in the fall. And what's worse is that Junior's nemesis, Curtis Sliwa wished that Gottis would suffer even more from the agonizing ailment.
"As far as I'm concerned he can't have enough of them," Sliwa said.
The cursing by Sliwa and the ruling by U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel came after lawyers for the 45-year-old Gotti claimed in court papers that federal authorities were insensitive to the defendant's behind-bars bouts with kidney stones — a condition that causes "pain worse than childbirth." They argued that there was no guarantee he would receive proper medical attention if his affliction returned.
The concern never came up during the bail hearing in federal court in Manhattan, and defense attorney Charles Carnesi afterward told reporters, "It's not an issue."
Three previous cases alleging Gotti orchestrated a kidnapping and attempted murder plot against Sliwa ended in hung juries and mistrials in 2005 and 2006. The son of notorious mob boss John Gotti used the defense that he had quit the mob for good in the 1990s.
In the latest case, Gotti has pleaded innocent to being involved in three slayings in the late 1980s and early 1990s and possessing and trafficking more than 5 kilograms of cocaine.
At a trial of a Gambino hitman earlier this year, mob turncoat John Alite testified for the first time that Gotti drafted him for a hit on an associate who had dared to ignore one of his father's orders. Alite also implicated his former friend in the slaying of two men in Queens amid drug turf wars.
Defense lawyers say Alite — who's slated to testify against Gotti — and other cooperators are lying to protect themselves.
The Gambino crime family has been the subject of a steady stream of government indictments and prosecutions since the elder Gotti, the so-called "Dapper Don," was sentenced to life in prison in 1992. He died behind bars in 2002.
