Last Night's Interview with John Gotti III

Did you catch the 60 Minutes interview last night with John Gotti III, the 46 year-old son of "The Teflon Don" John Gotti (who died in federal prison in 2002)?  At almost a half hour, it was long but fascinating I thought.  I was interested in this because "Junior" was reputed to have been designated as the acting boss of the Gambino crime family after his father was sent to prison for life in 1992.  


I've watched many TV documentaries about the mob over the years, and "Junior" is inevitably portrayed as a meathead, a lunkhead, and thug, lacking the sophistication or intelligence to run a crime family whose business was, by the 1990s, increasingly moving toward "white collar" crime like union infiltration and construction, and away from the less profitable street-level rackets that "Junior" reportedly preferred, like loan sharking, bookmaking and extortion. 


But in this new interview 15 years later he comes across as a much more sophisticated, thoughtful guy.  In part 1 of this interview (embedded below), he discusses his father's career and distant relationship to his family.  In part 2 (also embedded below) "Junior" focusses more on his own mob career and multiple trials for racketeering.  But it also has very interesting footage of "Junior's" last meeting with his father, in a federal prison hospital in 1999, when The Dapper Don's face had been disfigured by multiple surgeries for throat cancer.


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