TEFLON DON TO VELCRO DON

Teflon Don was the name given to John Gotti for his slipperiness with law enforcement.

Nothing stuck. They had the old gangster right up until it mattered.

But he didn’t fit the old gangster mold.

The big guy worked another angle.

For this post I use only the most impeccable sources.

From People Magazine:

 

In addition to his “Dapper Don” nickname, Gotti later earned the nickname “Teflon Don,” because he was acquitted in three different, consecutive criminal trials between 1986 and 1990.

In 1984, Gotti was arrested for allegedly assaulting a man . . . his accuser testified that he didn’t recognize Gotti. Gotti was acquitted.

In March 1987, Gotti was acquitted of federal racketeering and conspiracy. He told reporters on his way out of court, 

 

‘They’ll be ready to frame us again in two weeks. In three weeks we’ll be starting again, just watch.”

 

Less than three years later, Gotti was acquitted a third time, this time of four charges of assault and two charges of conspiracy . . . Gotti told his arresting officer in the case,

 

“Three to one I beat this charge.”

 

On Dec. 11, 1990, they arrested Gotti and fellow Gambino members Gravano and Frank Locascio.

Gotti was charged with five murders, including the slayings of Castellano and Bilotti, as well as with racketeering, conspiracy to commit murder, illegal gambling, bribery, tax evasion, obstruction of justice and loan sharking.

In April 1992, after 14 hours of deliberations, the jury found Gotti guilty of all 13 charges. That June, Gotti was sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole.

At the time of Gotti’s conviction, New York FBI boss Jim Fox told reporters, “The Teflon is gone. The Don is covered with Velcro.”

 

He died in prison. Not Folsom Prison, but the song fits.

 

Teflon Don Got Off, Looked Good Doing It, Then . . . 

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

 

Gotti became a huge celebrity who eschewed the usual mob traditions of keeping a low profile as he courted a media that was all too willing to turn him into a celebrity, to the point where Time magazine commissioned Andy Warhol to do a portrait of Gotti for a cover story.

The man wearing the $2,000 bespoke suits and reveling in such press-created nicknames as “The Dapper Don” and “The Teflon Don” wasn’t a charismatic movie star — he was a stone-cold killer, a vicious and ruthless thug who never should have become a media darling and who avoided prison time for years due to sometimes incompetent prosecution, various law enforcement agencies refusing to cooperate with each other, witness intimidation and compromised jurors.

TV reporters from the time acknowledge they were complicit in turning Gotti into a celebrity, while former mobster Sal Polisi says that Gotti was “romantically involved with his own image.”

 

His image ended at age sixty-one from throat cancer.

It’s an appropriate age for throat cancer. Ask me how I know. 

Luckily for me, treatment was better in 2017 than it was for convicts in 2002.

 

Old School Hoods

This is Carmen Galante.

From boomerpdx:

 

What about Carmine Galante?

I met the son of a Galante ‘Captain’ in Brooklyn. He ran the neighborhood, I lived there for the rent.

We were the only white guys on the sidewalk most of the time. It was exotic for this Oregon son.

This guy, Joey, was dealing and stealing his way back into the Family’s good graces after making a few mistakes.

He beat up the wrong guys a few times. Meeting him made me think he wasn’t done beating on people.

I’d been to the laundry, the one where the guy who hung around told stories about being at Woodstock, and walking back to my place with my Army duffle bag of clean clothes on my back.

Some guy crosses the street and follows me into a candy store.

“What’s in the bag?” he asked.

“Clothes. I’m running away from home.”

“I didn’t ask for some smart answer.”

“I didn’t ask for some dumb question. I’ve got my laundry. I’m going to fold it. How’s that?”

“Do you know who I am?”

“You’re the guy who crossed the street and followed me in here,” I said in my best Brooklyn style.

“I’m going to tell you one time. This is my neighborhood. If you need drugs or hubcaps you see me. Understand? If I hear you deal with anyone else I’m coming looking for you.”

Hubcabs? I’d need a car before I needed new hubcaps, but now I knew who to call.

“I’m not hard to find. Look, I’m right here.”

With that said, we hit it off.

The son of a gangster liked my act. He worked the street looking to move up. Maybe I could get his job?

We had lunch where known gangsters stopped to eat. Known to him. Like his dad.

 

A few months after I left town I was still reading New York papers and read a story on the gangster restaurant.

 

Even after a 1977 New York Times exposé detailing his rise as a Mafia don and an FBI target, Galante was so confident in his power that he did not bother to carry a gun.

He remarked to a journalist, “No one will ever kill me — they wouldn’t dare. If they want to call me boss of bosses, that’s all right. Between you and me, all I do is grow tomatoes.”

On Thursday, July 12, 1979, Carmine Galante visited Joe & Mary’s, an Italian restaurant on Knickerbocker Avenue in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood that was owned by his friend Giuseppe Turano.

 

Another New Yorker felt like they were above the law of the land.

The law of the jungle worked under different rules.

Galante was not a Teflon Don, not a Dapper Don; he didn’t die in prison, he was gunned down in the old gangland tradition.

 

Today’s Teflon Don?

From Mother Jones:

 

In 1999, when Trump was considering running for president as the candidate of the Reform Party, he was interviewed on Meet the Press by Tim Russert, who asked Trump about his “relations with members of organized crime.”

Trump denied having any such connections.

Yet eight months earlier—when Trump was not making moves to run for president—he acknowledged that he had done business with organized crime figures.

Talking to the Associated Press, Trump remarked, “Usually, I build buildings. I have to deal with the unions, the mob, some of the roughest men you’ve ever seen in your life.”

Yet Trump’s links to criminals never became an issue during the 2016 campaign or subsequently.

(No coincidence, Trump’s longtime attorney and mentor, Roy Cohn, who died in 1986, was also a lawyer for such mobsters as Fat Tony Salerno, Carmine Galante, and John Gotti.)

Yes, the United States was led for four years by a failed casino owner with ties to organized crime.

And Trump’s criminality in office was hardly shocking, as he often behaved like a Mafiosa.

(Nice little country you got there, President Zelenskyy. You want more weapons from us? Well, I’m gonna need you to do us this little favor.)

 

The Future Of Velcro Over Teflon

The thing about teflon? It’s not part of the recipe, but when you rely on old pans it is.

It’s the same with the people attracted to power.

Sometimes they’re not the right people, and Trump has a knack for spotting them:

These free marketers were not about recouping billions let alone trillions of dollars from the tax avoiding and tax evading superrich or mega corporations.

Quite the contrary, these appointments involved persons who had specialized in tax avoidance.

For example, four of Trump’s key economic appointments had been beneficiaries of shell companies and offshore banking accounts including Gary Cohn, Rex Tillerson, Steven Mnuchin, and Randal Quarles.

The only shining accomplishment of President Trump during his four years in office was a $1.9 trillion tax gift or cut enjoyed primarily by super-wealthy individuals, mega-corporations, and multinational businesses – to the ongoing detriment of the general population — who already had enjoyed the lowest tax rates in the corporate world.

The Tax Foundation analysis stated over the same period that the tax cuts would cost $1.47 trillion in decreased revenue while adding only $600 billion in growth and savings.  

 

I don’t pretend to have any idea what the numbers mean. That said, I could work it out since I like challenges.

My take: A tax cut in the trillions ought to add more than half of it back in growth and savings for us regulars out here, not adding to the pile in offshore money to reduce the tax burden on the biggest earners.

Instead, why not promote people interested enough in the common good to do the work of the people.

Where are the Shift Talkers?

Enough of the others.