NEW YORK (AP) -- It is perhaps the most intriguing unsolved mystery from the gaudy gangland career of John Gotti: Whatever happened to the neighbor who accidentally ran over and killed the mobster's 12-year-old son Frank -- and then vanished?
According to papers filed in Brooklyn federal court, John Favara was shot to death on orders of the outraged Gambino crime family chief and his body was dissolved in a container of acid. Authorities say a cooperating witness has fingered Charles Carneglia, a 62-year-old former mobster, as the perpetrator in the 1980 incident.
Those details, in a 44-page evidence motion by federal prosecutors, offer a new twist on the fate of Favara, a 51-year-old furniture warehouse worker who lived near the Gottis in the Howard Beach section of Queens.
Favara was arriving home from work on March 18, 1980 when Gotti's son, riding a minibike, darted in front of his car. The driver told police he was momentarily blinded by the sun and did not see the boy.
The incident was ruled an accident by police but Favara was subjected to death threats and harassment for months. His car was stolen and later smeared with the word ``murderer,'' and he was threatened by Gotti's bat-wielding wife when he tried to apologize.
However, he ignored suggestions that he should move away.
Five months later, on July 28, 1980, Favara disappeared after leaving work on Long Island and no trace of him was ever found. Witnesses saw him being beaten and heard tires squealing. The Gottis gave police hotel receipts showing they were in Florida on that date, and no arrests were ever made.
John Gotti Sr. at that time was a captain in the Gambino family, already scheming and murdering his way to becoming boss. After two stunning courtroom acquittals that earned him the sobriquet ``Teflon Don,'' the swaggering hoodlum was finally convicted in 1992 of murder, racketeering and a smorgasbord of other crimes. He died in federal prison in 2002.
Carneglia, according to the court documents, was part of a seven-member ``hit squad'' that committed murders on order and disposed of the victims. He faces trial for racketeering and five murders, and the prosecutors' motion, signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Burlingame, includes Favara's case among several ``uncharged crimes.''
Carneglia has pleaded not guilty. His attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
Authorities say one of three ``cooperating witnesses'' expected to testify at Carneglia's trial quoted Carneglia as saying he had put Favara's body in a barrel of acid.
That witness, identified only as ``CW2,'' also owned the bike that Frank Gotti was riding when he was killed. Carneglia told CW2 that he had protected him from retaliation by the senior Gotti for having loaned it to his son, according to the papers.
The court documents say Carneglia later told another informant, identified as CW1, that acid was ``the best method to use to avoid detection.''
Years later, when asking CW2 to help him move some barrels of acid in his basement, Carneglia allegedly ``alluded to the fact that the barrels had been used in connection with disposing of a number of bodies, which CW2 understood to be a key component of the defendant's value to the Gambino family.''
Jerry Capeci, an author and expert on the Mafia who has written extensively on Gotti, said he reported a decade ago how Favara was abducted and killed, naming various Gambino soldiers who could have been involved.
``The story then was that Favara's body had been put into a cement-filled oil drum and dropped in the ocean,'' said Capeci.
Experts could not immediately answer the tantalizing, CSI-style forensics question raised by the newest revelation. Asks Capeci: ``What kind of acid could be used in a metal drum without leaking?''
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