The Teflon Don’s son yesterday dodged a potential life sentence when smiling jurors cleared him on a racketeering rap and were hung on his alleged role in the kidnapping of Guardian arch-Angel Curtis Sliwa.
“God bless the jurors. They’ve given me my son back,” a weepy Victoria Gotti Sr. said minutes after the mistrial verdict in favor of balding, bespectacled son John “Junior” Gotti.
As the stymied panel’s decision was read in the packed Manhattan federal courtroom and weary jurors smiled, an elated Junior Gotti, who sported flashy blue suede shoes, broke into a broad grin.
It was later learned that a sole hold-out juror stood between him and convictions on two hefty extortion raps.
The 41-year-old son of dead Mafia kingpin “Dapper Don” John Gotti then looked over his shoulder, winked and gave the thumb’s-up sign to his crying mom, sisters and other relatives.
When the judge said she would likely allow Gotti to be released on bail in the coming days, his family wildly applauded.
But irked prosecutors indicated they weren’t done battling the Gambino crime-family offspring, hinting to the judge that they were preparing to try him again on the three counts that the jury split on, including Sliwa’s kidnapping.
“The U.S. government has assured me we’re going after John Gotti Jr. in round two on the same charges,” an obviously upset Sliwa sniffed, standing outside court surrounded by Angels in trademark, fire-engine-red jackets and matching berets.
“This is straight out of O.J.” Sliwa charged.
“This jury was out to lunch . . . their furniture upstairs is rearranged in the wrong rooms,” Sliwa said, pointing to his head.
“I’m a dead man walking,” he added. “I know there are Gambino cohorts who took a solemn vow to do what they couldn’t do, which is to end my life.”
The colorful street-crime fighter and WABC radio host was kidnapped by alleged Gotti cronies in 1992, and shot during an ensuing struggle in a taxi before he eventually escaped.
Prosecutors claimed that the abduction had been ordered by Junior in retaliation for the radio host’s on-air rants against his infamous father.
But the kidnapping case appeared to be the most troubling for the jurors.
The jury was split 7-5 over whether he was involved in the actual deed, sources said. It was divided 10-2 over whether he was involved in the conspiracy to commit it.
Likewise, in the kidnapping rap against alleged Sliwa triggerman Michael Yannotti, the jury split 7-5 on whether he was involved.
Jurors unanimously cleared Yannotti of an attempted-murder rap in the case. He also was cleared on two other murders, and another attempted murder.
Junior Gotti had once griped to The Post in letters from prison that he never had a chance to escape his fated life of crime, thanks to uncles who took him to mob-run social clubs instead of ballgames, and a legendary Mafioso dad who spent much of his time in jail.
But he insisted that he turned his back on his father’s legacy in 1999, after he was indicted on his first set of racketeering charges that put him behind bars for 6 ½ years.
At the time, Junior wound up pleading guilty in exchange for the reduced sentence.
And he sadly admitted that his father never forgave him for it.
“I broke his heart. And this I will have to live with forever,” Junior said.
It was clear that at least some of the jurors didn’t believe the younger Gotti’s claim that he had left mob life behind.
But one older female juror, reached at her Manhattan home several hours after the verdict, said she still didn’t consider credible the turncoat mobsters who testified to Junior’s alleged continued Mafia connection.
“The people who were testifying, the [defense] lawyers made them out to never have told the truth in their lives,” she said.
She then cryptically added of the verdict: “We were all surprised.”
“It was exhausting,” she said of the eight days of deliberations. “Have you ever tried to get three people to agree on anything? Try 12.”
Junior Gotti faced a prison sentence of 30 years to life on the charges.
He was acquitted of securities fraud, which dealt a economic blow to the feds. If convicted, they could have seized $25 million in his assets under RICO laws.
The other charges involved the kidnapping and various extortion plots, including of the construction industry.
Although Gotti’s previous jail sentence for racketeering had been finished in 2004, he had been held without bail since then on the new raps.
At-odds jurors had warned Judge Shira Scheindlin on Monday that they couldn’t reach a unanimous decision on most of the charges, but she forced them back to deliberations.
After accepting their hung status yesterday, she indicated that she would release Gotti on bail, which could be set as high as $5 million.
“Now, I think the man is entitled to bail,” Scheindlin said simply. “After five years, the time has come.”
Still, she added that she would likely greatly restrict his movements.
For Junior, the dad of five, freedom would signal the first time that he would be seeing his youngest daughter outside of prison.
“This case, what’s left of it, is a limping wreck,” said Junior’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman.
“We’ve been saying for a year to whoever’s been listening: He’s been done with this [mob] life. He knew it, the government knew it. Now the world knows it.
“Enough with John Gotti . . . Let him go home to his children.”
Lichtman, assisted in the case by lawyer Marc Fernich, said that moments after the verdict, Junior “turned to me and he said, ‘Thank you, you did everything you said you were going to do.’ “
But the defense lawyers still also plan to try to get the judge to declare an acquittal in the kidnapping rap, based on gray areas of the law.
Outside court, Junior’s flamboyant sister, Victoria Jr., wept by the elevator.
“It means he’s going home, and we need him,” the reality-TV star said.
Another sister, Angel, added, “I just can’t wait for his kids to see him.”
As for Yannotti and another defendant, Louis Mariani, both were convicted on racketeering charges that could land them up to 20 years behind bars.
The hefty Mariani quipped on his way out of the courtroom: “My wife said I’m going to the fat farm. We’ll all have a drink when I come home.”
Additional reporting by Leonard Greene, Hasani Gittens and Murray Weiss
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Gotti’s getaway on raps
* Securities fraud – Acquitted
* Conspiracy and kidnapping involving Curtis Sliwa: Hung jury
* Conspiracy to commit extortion involving construction industry: Hung
* Conspiracy involving various other extortions: Hung
* Government mulls whether to retry Junior on the charges.