SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Cancer-stricken crime boss John Gotti has rallied from a brush with death in a Missouri hospital, where he is being held under heavy security.
The ailing Gotti, buoyed by the presence of his wife and three children at St. John’s Regional Health Center, flashed his trademark smile and his condition improved.
Gotti has been battling severe head and neck cancer for the past three years, prompting premature reports that he was near death. He was rushed to the private hospital from his prison cell Thursday when his heart weakened and he started vomiting.
But there is little doubt now that the “Dapper Don” has entered the latter stages of a terminal disease.
Hooked to intravenous lines and catheter tubes, the gravely ill crime boss, however, remains under harsh prison scrutiny.
Two prison guards sit at Gotti’s bedside with a video camera positioned on a tripod in the room, continuing to record his every movement and conversation with his family.
In addition to the guards seated at his bedside, two armed sentries are posted outside his door with several more guards posted in the hospital lobby.
Federal authorities claim 60-year-old Gotti runs his Gambino crime family from prison, although he is in solitary confinement 23 hours a day and his visits are videotaped and recorded.
Last year, an embarrassing tape of a deeply personal and emotionally charged visit between Gotti, his daughter Victoria and grandson was leaked and shown on television.
Gotti’s family and friends live with the fear that tapes of the hospitalized Gotti might also surface one day, and they question the need for such unusually invasive security.
“At what point do they, [the feds] say, ‘Enough is enough?’ ” one source asked.
Federal authorities, meanwhile, say if Gotti remains stable and improves, they want to shift him back to the prison hospital nearby.