Junior Gotti's former pal John Alite testified for a second day, and he "told jurors that Gotti admitted that a man was hanged to cover up Gotti's role in a fatal stabbing at an Ozone Park bar" as reported by John Riley for Newsday:
Prosecutors contend that John Cennamo, whose 1984 hanging from a low tree limb behind a self-service laundry in St. Albans was officially classified a suicide, was killed by the Gambino family because he had fingered Gotti as a killer of Danny Silva. Silva was knifed to death during a 1983 fight at the Silver Fox Bar. Alite, a top aide to Gotti during the 1980s, said the subject of Cennamo's death came up in the summer of 1984, when Alite was hospitalized at Jamacia Hospital with injuries from a brawl and Gotti came to visit. * * * "He said John Carneglia was sent to take care of it on his father's orders." Alite said that Gambino mobsters Angelo Ruggiero and "Willie Boy" Johnson also were on the team of killers.
Alite also testified that after murdering coke dealer George Grosso in 1988, Junior made him "drive back to a crime scene swarming with cops so the mob scion could verify that the hit man had properly done his job" as reported by Kati Cornell and Andy Geller for the New York Post:
"He told me to get in the car and take a ride. He wanted to go back to the scene and make sure this guy was really dead," mob turncoat John Alite testified at Gotti's racketeering trial. "I watch a lot of movies. They say the killer always goes back to the scene. I didn't want to go back to the scene," Alite said. But nevertheless, he and Junior got into Alite's Corvette and they drove past the spot off the Grand Central Parkway. It was where Alite had dumped coke dealer George Grosso after shooting him in the head three times on Dec. 20, 1988. It was all roped off -- cops all over, coroners, trucks," Alite testified. Junior, he said, "was joking around. He said, 'He doesn't look too good.'" Gotti then reported back to his uncle Gene Gotti, a Gambino family capo, that Grosso was dead. * * * Alite said Grosso was killed for telling people he was dealing drugs for Junior and his father. He was warned to stop using their names. Junior, he said, "told me if he does it again and he finds out, he wasn't going to warn him again. He was going to kill him. He already told him once." Subsequently, Alite said, Junior told him "to go kill him. Get a bunch of guys together." * * * Alite had Grosso come to the White Horse Tavern in Queens, then persuaded him to go to another bar. At the White Horse, Alite was ordering shots for everybody, but was secretly drinking water. After they got into the car to go to the second bar, Alite said, he shot Grosso in the head three times on the Grand Central Parkway, then spit on him. Sitting next to him, he said, was a corrupt former detective, Phil Baroni. A car behind them was carrying Nicholas Tobia, who would go on to join the Suffolk County Police Department. He has been suspended.
Further reporting:
Kati Cornell and Andy Geller for the New York Post: Junior gleeful when describing murder: witness
John Riley for Newsday: Junior Gotti ordered hit on dealer, says mobster
Alison Gendar and Corky Siemaszko for the Daily News: Mob turncoat John Alite testifies he got nails done with John Gotti Jr. after drug dealer's murder
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