John A. “Junior” Gotti did such a bad job filling his father’s shoes, his own best friend was planning to whack him.
Former Gambino associate John Alite dropped the bombshell yesterday that he and fellow wiseguys had hatched a plot to kill the mob scion and acting boss after “Dapper Don” John Gotti was jailed in the mid-90s.
“I didn’t trust [Junior’s] leadership,” Alite said on the witness stand. “I thought he was weak, soft.”
Alite, 46, spoke as Junior’s mom, Victoria Gotti, glared at him from across the courtroom where the turncoat had already fingered her son in a slew of crimes and claimed to have had an affair with her then-married daughter, also named Victoria.
“I didn’t like how John was talking to me,” said Alite, who revealed he planned the hit on Junior with Charles Carneglia, an accused hit man on trial in Brooklyn federal court, and Nicholas Corozzo, a rival crew leader.
Carneglia “told me to take care of that half a Jew,” said Alite, alluding to a rumor on the street that Junior’s mother was half-Jewish, and testified that he was even given a machine gun to carry out the hit. He eventually handed the high-powered gun back to Carneglia, and the plot was dropped.
Alite said his friendship with Junior dissolved in 1993 around the same he began an affair with the mob scion’s older sister, when she was married to an allegedly abusive mobster, Carmine Agnello. “I had a problem with Carmine beating up Vicky . . . That turned into me [and] Vicky fooling around a lot,” said Alite.
Agnello found out and allegedly planned to shoot Alite, but never followed through.
“I didn’t trust anybody after that,” said Alite, who said he also wanted to rub out Agnello and another 10 or 15 wiseguys.
The murder plots never got off the ground, and Alite served Gambino crime-family leaders for another 10 years, but always wore a bulletproof vest.
“When you have a bad marriage and you stay married, that was me and John,” said Alite. “There was no divorce.”
In a bizarre display, the elder Victoria remained standing for much of Alite’s testimony, staring the witness down from the back of the room.
During a break, she told reporters the alleged affair with her daughter never happened and that the muscle-bound witness “would hump a cockroach.”
Alite said he learned of two separate plots to kill him over the next decade, and fled to South America in 2004 when he came under federal scrutiny.
Alite spent two years on the lam traveling throughout South America and Albania, and another two years in a Brazilian prison before deciding to cooperate with authorities in 2007.
He’s expected to be a key witness against Junior, who’s behind bars without bail as he awaits trial in Manhattan federal court later this year.
During his testimony at Carneglia’s trial, Alite implicated Junior in at least five murders, six shootings, several stabbings and a massive cocaine-trafficking operation that raked in around $1 million a month.
kati.cornell@nyost.