NEW YORK -- Federal prosecutors, after enduring three mistrials since September 2005 in the racketeering case against John ``Junior'' Gotti, said Friday they will not pursue a fourth trial against the second-generation mob boss.
``A retrial of defendant John A. Gotti on the pending indictment is not in the interests of justice in light of the three prior hung juries in the case,'' said U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, whose office mounted the prosecutions.
``Accordingly, we submitted a proposed order which the court has signed and which ends this prosecution,'' said a statement from the prosecutor. The paperwork was filed Thursday and made public a day later.
Gotti became a near full-time defendant in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in the last year as the government tried three times to prove he followed in father John Gotti's footsteps. Gotti was charged with ordering the botched kidnapping of Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who almost died in the 1992 attack.
Gotti's defense attorney, Charles Carnesi, did not return a phone call left at his office.
But Sliwa was outraged by the decision and promised a lawsuit against Gotti.
``John Gotti was given a gift he didn't deserve _ release from federal criminal charges which included his ordering of the plot to kidnap and shoot me in 1992,'' Sliwa said. ``He didn't deserve this break because a jury found him guilty of nearly killing me.''
Gotti, 42, was free on $7 million bail while awaiting the government's decision on his legal future.
The third jury was split on the claim by Gotti, the son of infamous Gambino family boss John ``Teflon Don'' Gotti, that he had walked away from organized crime before July 1999.
The most recent trial ended Sept. 28, with yet another deadlocked jury. In September 2005, a jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of conviction: This spring, a second trial produced the same result _ although this panel favored acquittal.
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