[narrator] This playbook has shown you how to harness your mob boss energy,
grow your bottom line,
and obliterate everyone who threatens your rule.
[guns firing]
It's a classic for a reason,
but not all mob bosses pay attention to its lessons.
I want to tell you about someone who thought he knew better.
His name, John Gotti.
John Gotti flipped the playbook on its head.
You don't talk.
You don't strut yourself around.
[narrator] During his tumultuous six-year reign
over New York's Gambino crime family,
Gotti blew off the playbook at every turn,
leading to an endless series of arrests and betrayal
that brought him and his entire organization to ruin.
John Gotti destroyed the Mafia.
You can't operate like John and expect to survive. You just can't.
[narrator] Ready to learn what not to do on your mob boss journey?
The Dapper Don is at your service.
[theme music playing]
In his prime,
John Gotti was the most recognizable mob boss in the world.
[Gotti] You'll never see another guy like me if you live to be 5,000.
[narrator] But by following his own impulses
instead of the playbook's wisdom,
he blew his chance at greatness, lost the respect of his peers,
and ended up dying behind bars.
There's a lot of guys who look up to John Gotti,
the way he dressed, the way he acted, because they're not mob guys.
The real story is it's the worst thing you could ever do.
[narrator] Before we get into the bad choices Gotti made at the top,
let's give him his due for making it there in the first place.
Here's how he pulled it off.
[George] John Gotti was a thug.
His attributes only worked well in organized crime.
So he gravitated toward the one business
where what he was good at would have a payoff,
and then he started to work his way up the ladder.
[man] The leaders of the Gambino family
were very much impressed by the young John Gotti.
He was making money for them.
He had the reputation for being violent because he was,
and, by all accounts, Gotti was a raconteur.
He was somebody who had charisma.
He was somebody that had leadership qualities.
[George] Aniello Dellacroce, who was the underboss of the Gambino family,
became a mentor for Gotti.
Dellacroce came up from the streets.
It was somebody that Gotti could look up to.
Dellacroce taught Gotti you got to be tough, you gotta be strong,
and you don't take any guff from anybody.
This is not about diplomacy.
This is about an iron fist.
[siren wailing]
[narrator] In 1973, boss Carlo Gambino's nephew is kidnapped.
The main suspect, Irish-American gangster Jimmy McBratney.
[Ed] People in the Gambino crime family decided
that the people responsible for the kidnapping should be dealt with.
Gotti was given the task of killing Jimmy McBratney.
[gunshot]
So Gotti ends up pleading out the manslaughter,
and I think doing four years.
When he comes back, you know, he's a stand-up guy.
He's been involved in a murder, and so now he can get made.
[narrator] Gotti was now a made man, a fully initiated member of the Mafia,
but he wanted to be a boss, and his plan for getting there
had him run afoul of the playbook from the opening gun.
No matter what organization you're looking to lead,
you have to respect its structure.
That's especially true with the Italian Mafia,
also known as Cosa Nostra.
[Sammy] You live by Cosa Nostra's rules.
It's not your thing.
It's not my thing.
It's our thing, as a family.
[narrator] And in this family, everybody needs to know their place.
In Cosa Nostra, there's a pecking order.
[man] At the top, you have your boss.
Under the boss, you have your underboss. Then you have your consigliere,
which is basically the advisor or the counselor.
Then you have your captains.
That's sort of your mid-level managers.
And then you have your soldiers. Those are the made guys.
Beyond that, you have associates. They're not made members of the group,
but they're people who work with and contribute to the mob.
[George] And if everybody buys into that,
the organization will probably function fairly smoothly.
[narrator] But when you're a street fighter like John Gotti,
working your way into upper management, it can be hard to just blend in.
He just wanted it the way he wanted it.
By his rules only, and nobody else's rules mattered to him.
-[siren wailing] -[gun firing]
[Ed] In the mid-1980s,
Paul Castellano was the boss of the Gambino family.
His faction was sort of the white-collar faction of the family.
They made their money through committing fraud crimes.
They used labor unions, and they used sophisticated means,
less violent means.
[narrator] Gotti's relationship with the top boss was complicated
by more than just artistic differences.
Castellano put out an edict, "No drugs."
Anybody deals drugs is gonna get killed.
[gunshot, guns firing]
[narrator] As a loyal captain,
you should always make sure your boss's commands are followed.
But Gotti wasn't that loyal.
[George] Gotti's brother Gene and Angelo Ruggiero, Gotti's good friend,
get jammed up in a heroin case.
[narrator] Not a good look.
[George] Gotti decides, "I got to do a preemptive strike."
"If I don't take this guy out, he'll take my brother and my best friend out."
"Maybe he's gonna take me out."
[narrator] When it comes to targeting mob royalty,
you can't just act alone,
and Cosa Nostra has some particularly strict rules.
In the American Mafia,
you can't kill a fully initiated or made guy in your family
without getting permission from your boss.
You can't whack a made guy in another family
without getting permission from your boss and the boss of the other family.
And if you want to clip your own boss, good luck.
You need approval from the Commission.
Basically, the Mafia board of directors.
The rules were clear.
John Gotti needed to make his case through the proper channels,
but he decided otherwise.
He said, "Do it. Fuck it."
We knew we couldn't get permission from this thing.
Bosses want to protect each other in the Commission,
so we formed this alliance which we called The Fist.
So, there was five of us, and there was nobody saying no.
It was just a time and a place.
[narrator] It's the height of the holiday shopping season in Midtown Manhattan.
And John Gotti and Sammy Gravano are awaiting their prey,
Paul Castellano and his underboss, Tommy Bilotti.
Sammy scored a tip
that Gambino higher-ups were meeting at five o'clock
at Sparks Steakhouse.
And I said, "This is perfect."
We know the restaurant.
We know what time.
We can make it happen.
I had told John, "They're a little late."
"I wonder what's going on."
As I said that, four feet, five feet away from me,
was their car stopped at the light.
I told John they're right next to us.
[narrator] But luckily, their targets are distracted.
They give Gotti's conspicuously-dressed hitmen the word.
Castellano is approaching.
And as the boss's car pulls up to the valet,
the assassins execute Gotti's plan.
[ominous music playing]
[music crescendos]
[gunshot]
And it couldn't have been a better plan.
[crowd screaming]
No legitimate people were hurt.
There was hundreds of people who saw this, was witnesses.
[screaming continues]
"What did they look like?" They didn't know.
All they saw was those hats, the jackets, and people getting shot.
[siren wailing]
[narrator] Within days, John Gotti's power play bears fruit.
He's named the new boss of the Gambino family.
So, what's the problem?
He absolutely knew what he was doing was against the rules.
There's no doubt about it.
[narrator] And this unsanctioned hit puts a huge target on John Gotti's back.
The very next day, he's out there. He's just, "I'm the king now."
[Michael] You know, murder brings heat.
Doesn't only bring heat to you. It brings heat to everybody.
[narrator] When the temperature gets too hot,
our trusty playbook has just the trick to cool things down,
which, naturally, Gotti would ignore
big time.
As a mob boss, the spotlight is not your friend.
[Elie] Smart mobsters don't want attention on themselves
from law enforcement, from the media, from the public.
They know that what they're doing is illegal,
and attention can only hurt their bottom-line goal,
which is to make money.
[narrator] Let me show you how it's done.
Florida mob boss Santo Trafficante Junior
earned the nickname "The Silent Don" for his low-key lifestyle,
despite being a big enough player in both the US and Cuba
that he was allegedly enlisted by the CIA to kill Fidel Castro.
Sicilian mob boss Bernardo Provenzano
managed to evade capture for nearly 40 years
by avoiding phone calls and all electronic communication.
He would task his lieutenants
by sending messages on small folded pieces of paper called pizzini.
While Genovese crime boss Vincent "the Chin" Gigante
deflected attention from his activities by feigning dementia for 30 years,
shuffling around Greenwich Village in a bathrobe
while muttering to himself and nearby parking meters.
After the Castellano murder, Gotti had good reason to lay low.
[John] It blasted John Gotti all over the media
that the people that didn't know him outside the local areas of New York,
they all knew who John Gotti was now.
[narrator] But instead of following the playbook and going underground,
Gotti decided to do the opposite.
[Sammy] But John Gotti decided, "I have to present myself as a boss now."
So his whole demeanor changed.
His wardrobe changed, and his attitude changed.
[narrator] Within months, Gotti's profile was going to be raised even higher
by his first of three public trials.
This one was a blast from the past.
A year before he becomes the boss,
John Gotti is just another Gambino captain looking to blow off steam
at the family's favorite bar
when his good time is interrupted.
-[indistinct chatter] -[horn honks]
[honking]
Refrigerator repairman Romual Piecyk is boxed in and livid.
Not knowing who he's dealing with,
he asks the wise guys to get out of his way.
They decline…
[grunts, screams]
…and make sure the fridge guy knows that he got off easy.
Piecyk runs off straight to the police.
This was a nonsense assault. It was almost street thuggery.
[narrator] But with Gotti publicly flaunting his mob boss status,
the authorities were eager to take him down
whether Mr. Piecyk likes it or not.
[Ed] All he had to do was open up the paper and see
that the leader of the most notorious
and violent organized crime family in the country
was the subject of his complaint.
[narrator] As prosecutors refine their case,
the new mob boss makes sure
Piecyk and his family also get some extra attention.
[John] Gotti wasn't sending out orders to hurt this guy.
He was just trying to make him go away.
[narrator] Inside the packed courtroom,
Gotti and his attorneys wait for the proceedings to begin,
but Piecyk doesn't show.
He has scheduled elective surgery.
It only delays the inevitable.
[gavel knocking]
But when Piecyk finally takes the stand, he can't seem to remember a thing.
If I did go stand there and say that this is Mr. Gotti
and this is Mr. Colletta, they assaulted me and robbed me…
I'm not sure.
[narrator] The judge throws out the case,
leading to even more headlines about Gotti's great escape.
True to form,
Gotti took all the wrong lessons from his brush with justice.
[George] That was an example of,
"Hey, this celebrity stuff can really work to my advantage."
"Look at this guy."
"I didn't even have to do anything." He forgot.
[narrator] But when you continue setting the playbook on fire,
don't expect to get off that easy.
[Lou] If you're gonna be out there and be flashy,
you're going to embarrass law enforcement.
So now we're gonna double down.
[narrator] Even so, you can still get back on side
with the playbook by using your head
and making sure it doesn't get too big.
Throughout history, excessive pride or hubris
has been the downfall of many powerful figures.
[woman] One thing that can happen
when somebody develops this hubris is they make mistakes.
Because they are operating
under this false belief that nothing can touch me.
[narrator] And by the mid-1980s,
John Gotti was getting ever closer to the sun
whether he knew it or not.
[Ed] John Gotti was an egotistical narcissist
who appeared to revel in the attention that he was getting from the press
and from the public.
And the more he got, the more he wanted.
[newscaster] He's called the Dapper Don.
[newscaster 2] The Dapper Don.
[newscaster 3] The so-called Dapper Don, John Gotti.
Whoever named him the Dapper Don should have came down and talked to him.
The reporter. He would've paid that guy $100,000 for that label.
He loved those labels.
I mean, you couldn't make that stuff up.
[John] He'd get his hair done on a regular basis,
so he'd have one of the barbers come over to the club,
and they'd cut his hair and shake as they're cutting.
He's got very good taste.
He likes his hair extremely perfect.
[Ellie] He operated in front of the cameras.
He made himself into a celebrity, into a "front page of the tabloid" figure.
[narrator] But Gotti's uncontrolled ego quickly got him into even worse trouble.
[Ed] Gotti moved his headquarters
from the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Queens to the Ravenite,
and this was the ancestral home of the Gambino crime family
in Little Italy, in Lower Manhattan.
It was a move up the ladder, clearly. You know, it's Manhattan now.
You're not out in Queens. Now you're in the city.
Guys had to come there to meet with Gotti on a regular basis.
The FBI's outside taking pictures.
[camera shutters clicking]
Is that good? That's not good.
He put the whole Mafia on Front Street.
A secret brotherhood.
[narrator] How do you think that went with the heads
of the other Mafia families?
They were appalled that Gotti was carrying himself in this flamboyant way,
bringing all this attention upon himself and the family.
[narrator] And they were going to do something about it
by borrowing a technique
from their criminal cousins across the pond.
The Commission hired Sicilian mobsters to have Gotti killed.
A car bomb exploded today
not in the Middle East, but in a quiet neighborhood of Brooklyn.
[narrator] But things didn't go according to plan.
The Sicilian mobsters botched it.
[newscaster] One man was killed, the 58-year-old Frank DeCicco
described as a lieutenant to John Gotti.
They put a bomb in the wrong car.
[narrator] Were it not for a little operator error,
Gotti's ego would have cost him his life.
You may not be so lucky.
But the Dapper Don's string of good fortune was about to hit a snag.
For a studious mob boss,
a stay in the big house can be just a temporary inconvenience.
But then you'll have to do better
at adhering to the playbook than John Gotti.
There comes a time in every mob boss's career
when you will have to work remotely.
To be in this life, you have to be willing to go to prison,
because at some point, you're gonna get caught.
[narrator] So make sure your time in government custody is productive.
[Elie] Whenever a mob boss goes to prison,
they do their best to continue running the show from behind bars.
But the struggle is to keep the money coming in to keep control of this family
when you don't have your individual liberty.
[narrator] These jailhouse operators didn't miss a step.
During his time in prison,
Pablo Escobar continued running all aspects of his criminal operation.
And when he discovered that his phone calls were being monitored,
he started using carrier pigeons instead.
While serving 26 life sentences,
Salvatore Riina successfully ordered the kidnapping of a 13-year-old boy
to prevent his father from revealing Mafia secrets.
When the plan failed, he had the boy killed
and his body dissolved in acid.
And to continue running his operation behind bars,
Sinaloa Cartel leader, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman,
put most of the prison system on his payroll.
Friendly guards also helped him smuggle in cash,
prostitutes,
Viagra,
and the latest movies to make his stay more pleasant.
The Piecyk assault case was in the rearview mirror,
but John Gotti was now in jail awaiting his second trial.
This time on federal RICO charges.
RICO is the worst law they ever put on the books.
It's Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act,
and it's an all-encompassing law.
It's very hard to defend.
[narrator] Excuses are for losers.
You still have a business to run.
That will take a firm hand and impeccable judgment.
Wise guys aren't the best people in the world.
A lot of people have their own agendas.
When someone has the boss's ear, they could bring them anything,
and that's a problem.
[narrator] To stay connected in prison,
Gotti relies on a small group of lieutenants.
His most trusted messenger is Angelo "Quack Quack" Ruggiero,
known for his duck-like waddle and big mouth.
Angelo comes to Gotti with urgent news
that another capo, Robert "DiB" DiBernardo,
the undisputed porn king of the underworld,
has been talking smack about the boss.
[Sammy] You'd have to be a complete imbecile
to be talking about a boss behind his back.
He's got the ultimate power over your life, whether you live or die.
[narrator] Gotti has heard enough. DiB needs to be rubbed out.
Back at home, Quack Quack calls Sammy Gravano to relay the order.
Sammy invites DiB to his office to discuss construction projects.
Once DiB arrives, Sammy asks an associate to get their guest a cup of coffee.
It's a signal.
And thus, the demise of the porn king comes prematurely.
While normally mob hits are taken in stride,
this one is different.
[Michael] It's a hit that shouldn't have been ordered. DiB's a good guy.
He made a lot of money, and he was doing well,
and he was well-liked.
Why's this guy getting killed? What did he do?
[narrator] Later, Sammy Gravano would find the likely answer.
Angelo, before he makes up this story about DiB talking behind John's back,
had borrowed 250,000 from him.
When he gets hit, he just wipes that debt out.
He never talked behind John's back.
The whole hit completely turned me off. He was a good friend.
[Michael] You know, that's a treacherous life.
Dissension is created, uh,
and mistrust is created when something like that happens.
Now, your own men are questioning that and worried about themselves.
You know? What, am I next?
[narrator] That's what happens when you take your eye off the ball.
You get a crew full of killers doubting your leadership.
And yet, Gotti's worst mistake is still to come,
failing to follow the playbook's most basic commandment of all.
The code in the American Mafia is silence.
Don't talk about a murder that's committed.
Don't talk on your phones. Don't talk indoors.
Don't talk in your car.
Everything's about keeping your mouth shut.
[shushes]
[narrator] The Mafia calls this code Omerta.
[Micheal] When you take the oath of Omerta,
you're taking an oath to never admit that the life ever exists
and to never betray the life.
That's the oath.
I tell ya I don't know anything about--
For a mafioso to break Omerta is tantamount to betraying your family,
everything you know, everything you love.
[narrator] But as for John Gotti,
he was never great at keeping his thoughts to himself,
even while standing trial on his RICO case.
He goes into the court the next day. He's smug. He's smiling. He's waving.
He knows he ain't going to jail on this case.
[John] He starts setting odds.
"I'll bet you three to one, I beat this case or that case,"
knowing we're getting to the jurors.
[narrator] Well, he was right.
[newscaster] The man they say is the boss of the nation's most powerful Mafia family
was today found not guilty of racketeering and conspiracy.
[narrator] With each acquittal, the Teflon Don's legend grew even larger.
He starts inviting people to come to his trials. Movie stars.
It brings more notoriety to him. It legitimizes him.
And it's getting turned around on the government
that John Gotti is an innocent guy that works for a plumbing company.
And they don't like him because he's in the public's eye.
[Renee] The government was jealous of him because he was winning.
A vendetta's a vendetta.
Doesn't matter where it comes from.
It comes from the good side, it comes from the bad side,
at the end of the day, they're gonna get your ass.
[narrator] Sounds like a great time to quiet things down,
but then he wouldn't be John Gotti, would he?
[Ed] Gotti was talking very freely with countless members,
leaders of the Gambino crime family, about their criminal activities.
He was talking about the structure of Cosa Nostra, past hits,
guys that he was contemplating hitting.
The FBI is able to bug an apartment where Gotti would have meetings.
He assumed the apartment was safe,
and it wasn't.
[Ed] If he just stopped and used common sense,
he would say, "I'm running a real risk here."
"I am gonna bring myself down."
"And I'm going to bring the entire family down."
[Gotti] Anytime you got a partner who don't agree with us, we kill him.
You go to the boss, and the boss kills 'em.
You tell this punk, I, me, John Gotti, will sever your… [bleep] …head off.
You… [bleep].
[narrator] Thanks to extensive wiretaps and other surveillance,
the FBI and federal prosecutors gather enough evidence
to indict John Gotti, Sammy the Bull, and consigliere Frank LoCascio
on RICO charges.
Now, they just need to wrap them up.
On December 11th, 1990,
agents spot Gotti, Gravano,
and other Gambino soldiers arriving for a meeting at the Ravenite.
They swarm in expecting a fight,
but instead receive a cordial welcome.
Gotti's not worried.
He's the Teflon Don after all.
After enjoying a delightful beverage, Gotti takes his leave.
He's sure he'll be back soon,
until an agent tells him,
"You shouldn't have talked so much in that woman's apartment."
[Sammy] It must have dawned on him he was in deep shit.
He knew he fucked up big time.
[narrator] Having now defied the Mafia's most sacred code,
Gotti's loose lips will lead to one last karmic twist.
[Ed] John Gotti was being critical of Gravano on wiretaps.
He was concerned Gravano was taking up too much power for himself,
too much authority, asserting himself
in a way that was more substantial than Gotti liked.
Gravano saw this as Gotti being a dry snitch.
He wasn't ratting on him,
but in case somebody was listening, he was ratting on him.
You don't have to call John Gotti a rat, but that's a fucking rat move.
I was brokenhearted.
We were attached at the hip.
We went into a war, took over a family.
People were killed.
I killed people for you.
I rigged cases for you.
I said, "Fuck the Mafia. Fuck John Gotti."
And I reached out to the government to change sides.
My allegiance wasn't going to be to him or the Mafia.
To me, the code was gone.
It was gone. It was over.
[narrator] Thanks to Sammy's testimony,
John Gotti finally paid the price for rejecting the playbook
and going rogue.
[newscaster] The feds finally did it.
They took down America's most notorious Mafia boss since Al Capone.
Charges of murder, gambling, and racketeering finally stuck
to the flashy, flamboyant John Gotti.
[narrator] In the end, Gotti did achieve the attention he always wanted.
He was the best guy around.
[woman] What about the people he murdered?
-What murder? -They say he murdered…
[Lou] I think John Gotti represented people's frustrations with the government.
How the government's always nickel-and-diming you,
and John Gotti's fighting the government.
[narrator] But the Dapper Don's reward for doing things his way
was a reign that lasted just six years
and a lonely death in prison from throat cancer.
Basically, Gotti was an example of how not to be a mob boss.
[Sammy] If you want fame,
go become a fucking actor or whatever you want to be,
but don't be a mob boss.
[siren wailing]
[narrator] Now that you've seen the wrong path to building
an enduring criminal career,
let's refocus our attention on the right one.
Our next chapter will show how with unfailing discipline
and the right priorities,
you can preserve your power and your freedom for the long haul.
Nobody tackled this challenge as creatively
as Boston's most legendary mob boss, Whitey Bulger,
whose ruthless attention to detail charted his path to infamy
and then pulled a disappearing act for the ages.
[theme music playing]