Mafia heir jailed in deal to avoid trial

THE FEDS made him an offer he couldn't refuse, and so the man said to be the heir to America's leading crime syndicate will be spending some time away from his business.

John "Junior" Gotti had been expected to stand trial for racketeering, bribery, extortion and a rack of other charges. Instead, he did a deal that will send him to prison. "The government was putting Mr Gotti in a position where he had no choice," said Gerald Shargel, Mr Gotti's lawyer.

He will be given a prison sentence of up to seven years, fined $1m (pounds 640,000) and will forfeit another $1m that prosecutors say was ill-gotten gains. If convicted on the other charges, he could have faced 20 years.

Junior's father, John Gotti, is already doing time: he was sentenced to life in 1992, belying his nickname as the "Teflon Don". The head of the Gambino family, he was of the old school, with five murder charges against him. But Junior is apparently cut from a different cloth, with few of the habits that characterised America's crime families in the past.

A recent profile in the New York Times Magazine sketched a character who sounded more like a middle manager than a crime chieftain. It said that he preferred fried chicken to Italian food. He wears trainers and jeans.

The charges against Junior related to the takeover of a topless bar called Scores in Manhattan, and other small matters such as a telephone-card racket that hardly measure up to the image of a Godfather. He seems to have decided that a deal would be better than a lengthy, potentially risky trial. "I conspired with a group of individuals forming an association," Mr Gotti confessed - not the kind of dialogue from which blockbuster novels are made.

The legal proceedings have created only one star: Sarita Kedia, the 28- year-old Bombay-born lawyer for Mr Gotti, who was brought up in America's Deep South. She was recently given a front-page profile in the New York Times.

The Feds are delighted with the conviction. "This guilty plea and conviction should serve as the death knell to the control the Gottis have exercised over the Gambino family for nearly 15 years," US Attorney Mary Jo White said.

The Mob seems to be in crisis in the US, as many of the younger generation prefer straight business, and new organisations from abroad are muscling in. Portrayals of the Mafia in the US media have also shifted, with a hit television series, The Sopranos, showing a man wracked with self doubt and rushing off to appointments with his therapist.

For his part, Mr Gotti wanted "finality and closure," said his lawyer, a piece of psycho-speak that has apparently even made its way into the argot of the Mob.