After listening to feds justify the need to freeze his properties, Gotti fumed outside White Plains Federal Courthouse, saying, "Who's the racketeers?"

John Gotti Jr.

Gotti, who prosecutors say runs the Gambino crime family for his imprisoned-for-life father, John (Dapper Don) Gotti, says he is nearly tapped out and has been forced to borrow money from his sister, best-selling author Victoria Gotti.

"It's just a game to them," he said, explaining that prosecutors only froze properties that hold substantial equity, leaving him with debt-ridden properties that wouldn't fetch much if he sold them.

Shortly after Gotti was indicted on racketeering charges in January, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White got the court to put liens on much of Junior's property, including his Mill Neck, L.I., mansion, rental property in Queens, a commercial building on Long Island and plots of land in rural Pennsylvania.

The feds argue that Junior purchased these properties with income from criminal activity, such as extorting money from the strip club Scores and shakedowns in the construction industry. They also fear that Gotti will transfer the properties to his family.

The liens bar Junior from selling the property or collecting rental income. The commercial rents that Junior collected from auto body shops on the Queens site and storefronts on the Long Island property are being held in a federally controlled escrow account.

Prosecutors did not put a hold on other Gotti properties, including a single-family ranch home in Massapequa, L.I., two small buildings in Ozone Park, Queens, and some vacant land in Sullivan County.

"It's all mortgaged out. Everything with equity they took," Gotti said. What's left over, he said, offers him "extremely minimal equity."

He said the feds even went after those who tried to help him out. After he borrowed $125,000 from his brother-in-law, Carmine Agnello, to pay legal bills for his four lawyers, he transferred money out of his bank account to Agnello's account.

"They seized [Carmine's account], too," he said, shaking his head in disgust because, he says, that money was earmarked to repay the loan.

Gotti's lawyer, Gerald Shargel, went one step further: "It's outright thuggery."

-- Greg Smith - 11/19/98