Gotti son, others charged in '92 attempted murder

NEW YORK (AP) — Less than two months from freedom, the jailed son of the late mob boss John Gotti was charged Thursday with in a kidnapping plot and attempted murder of an outspoken talk-show host — allegedly to silence his radio rants against the "Dapper Don."

John A. "Junior" Gotti, 40, was scheduled to leave prison Sept. 7 on a 1999 racketeering conviction, but now faces charges that could put the former head of the Gambino crime family away for life. Three other alleged mobsters were named in the indictment.

Court papers allege that Gotti and Gambino soldiers Joseph "Little Joey" D'Angelo and Michael "Mikey Y" Yannotti plotted in 1992 to first kidnap and then murder Curtis Sliwa, reportedly as payback for comments he had made about the elder Gotti on a radio show.

On June 19, 1992, Sliwa was ambushed after he hailed a cab on Manhattan's Lower East Side. D'Angelo and Yannotti, who were inside the cab, allegedly fired several shots before fleeing.