Metro

Gotti girl’s marriage to mob brute

In between his arrest in September in 1984 on assault and robbery charges following a fight over a parking space, and his indictment with nine other mobsters in March 1985, John Gotti found time to give away his youngest daughter, Victoria, in marriage to Carmine Agnello in December 1984. To say he did so relectantly would b e an understatement. His threats to Agnello regarding how he expected his daughter to be treated were heeded — at least until the Dapper Don was locked up in 1992 for a decade until his death in prison. By the late ’90s, as Victoria was raising their sons — Carmine, John and Frank — she discovered Agnello was a member of her father’s crime family, and she saw him become a paranoid, violent, gun-toting maniac at home. Here, in the third installemnt from her new memoir, “This Family of Mine,” Victoria Gotti reveals the truth about her marriage and her husband how terrorized her — details she never dared tell her father. Read the first two installments here.
See the Gotti family album here.

The day of my wedding, Dec. 9, 1984, my father, my sister, Angel, and I rode to St. Mary Gate of Heaven Church in Ozone Park in a vintage white Bentley.

We sat in silence. It’s no secret that my father was convinced I was making a mistake, probably the “biggest mistake of my life.”

When we arrived, it was 20 minutes past noon and the ceremony was scheduled to begin promptly at 12:30, but the groom, Carmine Agnello, and his family had not yet arrived.

I remember my father’s face — his expression was as stiff as stone, his eyes glaring. Even I was scared.

He checked his Rolex repeatedly before turning to me and saying, “I’m giving Carmine five more minutes. Then I’m calling off the wedding and hunting him down like a wild animal. Who does he think he’s playing with?”

Tears welled in my eyes as I realized things were going terribly wrong.

Just a few minutes later, a dirty old tow truck pulled up to the church with Carmine in the passenger side and his brother Mike at the wheel. Behind the tow truck was Marie Agnello in her Chevy Nova, with her daughter and two of her sisters.

The fleet of limos sent to pick up my fiancé and his family had never arrived.

My father adjusted his bow tie and the lapels to his custom-made tuxedo then turned to me and said, “Too bad. I was just coming to terms with the notion this wedding wasn’t to be. I was really enjoying the images of what I was going to do to Carmine when I caught him.”

We finally made our way up the church steps and inside, where we stood for a moment or two, waiting for the organ music to begin.

Dad turned to me and, with a look of sincerity and eyes filled with tears, said, “Vicki, you still don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. We could call the whole thing off and change the affair into an elaborate Christmas party. We could go home and you could change into something more appropriate and we could just have fun tonight.”

Believe me, I was tempted — God knows there were many signs telling me to run. But we’d come this far and, now, with the entire church filled with people, I just bit the bullet and kissed my father on the cheek, told him I loved him, and we walked down the aisle.

I REMEMBER when I first found out my so-called hard working husband was part of the mob. Most people won’t believe me, but I honestly had no idea he had anything to do with “the life.”

Carmine came home one night in 1998 and said he had “something important” to speak to me about. He told me he was going to be arrested.

He was a legitimate businessman who had built an empire — I couldn’t imagine what he could possibly be arrested for.

Carmine explained that there was a rival auto parts owner who had recently moved in across the street from his new metal plant and shredder facility in The Bronx. When the competition stole many of his loyal clients, Carmine went ballistic. He’d confronted the guy at first and made a thinly veiled threat. Something like, “If you keep stealing my customers, you’ll pay the price in the end.” A week later, the man increased his prices yet again.

A week later, someone firebombed one of the competitor’s tow trucks.

A few days after that, Carmine received a call from his attorney, Marvyn Kornberg, saying he was to be arrested. Law enforcement had built a sting operation, and was intentionally egging him on, and Carmine fell right into his trap.

I called my mother. I made a comment like, “I just don’t understand why law enforcement is so interested in Carmine. It’s not like he’s somebody.” By which I meant somebody involved in the life. My mother’s silence was chilling.

I also said, “If one reporter prints that Carmine is a mobster, I’m going to sue.”

My mother said, “Vicki, don’t get involved in something you know nothing about. You’ll only look foolish when the truth comes out.”

That was when I realized Carmine was, in fact, part of the life — and my mother had known. Obviously, my father knew this — in fact, he’d allowed it. I couldn’t understand why, especially since he knew my feelings about the life. I wanted better for myself, my children. Didn’t he?

That Halloween, I’d suggested we have a small party for the kids and their classmates. Carmine turned it into a carnival — literally, with a Ferris wheel, a specially built funhouse, rides, popcorn and cotton candy stands, and a hayride that went on for hours.

And, of course, for the adults, there was an Elvis impersonator, flown in from Las Vegas, who not only looked like the real deal, but sounded like him, too. The party was completely over the top to any sane person.

A few days later, Carmine called me to say he’d bought a new Mercedes sedan and it was ruby red. When he pulled into the driveway later that night, he was not happy.

“I hate the color,” he’d said as he got out of the car. “I’m bringing it back tomorrow. I already ordered a black one and even a white one for weekends.”

I also found out he’d started betting roughly $20,000 a week on horses at the racetrack. These manic episodes became more and more frequent, as did the depressive ones.

One night while I was serving dinner, he said something that greatly disturbed me. I had a friend in those days that Carmine was not too fond of — an attractive, recently single woman who lived in Brooklyn. My husband considered her “too wild” and forbade me from even speaking to her. I stopped seeing her but did speak to her on the phone now and then.

But at dinner, Carmine mentioned something this friend had said to me earlier that day, something no one else would know about a man she was dating. I found this extremely odd and asked him how he knew about this. He didn’t answer, but only shot me a strange and unnerving glare.

That night I found it hard to sleep. Over the past few weeks, he’d mentioned things that I knew I had not told him, not secrets, just things that were of no relevance to him. It finally hit me — my husband was listening in on my conversations somehow.

I climbed out of bed and searched room by room looking for anything, some sign of a recording device. I used a dim flashlight so as not to wake anyone. Then I remembered that the main panel for all the phone wires was in the basement, in the laundry room.

I quietly made my way down the stairs, and that’s when I found it — a small tape recorder attached to a set of wires leading to the main panel. I pressed play. I was shocked and then stunned to hear every conversation I’d had earlier that day.

THINGS between us were reaching the point of no return. One night, I went to dinner with some of my closest friends — two women and one man — to celebrate the publication of a book I’d written. When Carmine found out, he became so jealous, so enraged, he drove to the restaurant and made a scene outside, yelling and pressing down on the car horn.

When I refused to come outside, he did the unthinkable; he drove his Mercedes right through the restaurant storefront.

A few months later, my publisher threw an elaborate book party at Il Cantinori in Manhattan. My husband was noticeably absent.

When I arrived home later that night, I found him asleep. I wanted to slap him. Instead, I undressed, took a hot bath, and went to sleep in the guest room.

He woke up about an hour after I got home. A few minutes later, he was standing in the doorway.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” he asked. “I got a great copy of ‘Goodfellas,’ ” he said. “Sure you don’t want to watch it?”

I ignored him.

At 3 a.m., I woke with a start. There was a heavy weight on my chest, crushing me with a viselike grip. I opened my eyes and Carmine was straddling me and pointing a gun — my shotgun — at my face, just inches from my mouth. I was frozen.

Carmine only laughed and said, “So you think you’re going to leave me? I don’t think so.” His eyes were empty of all reason.

“Say something,” Carmine said. “If I shoot you in the face, you won’t be beautiful anymore.

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”

The tears were streaming down my face, and my body was as still as a corpse. In the distance, my son’s voice was coming from the top of the stairs. Then, just as quickly as the terrifying incident began, it ended.

Carmine started laughing and quickly climbed off of me. He threw the shotgun under the bed and said, “Are you scared? Come on, don’t tell me you really believed I’d shoot you.”

I grabbed the children from a deep sleep and piled them in my Mercedes. I arrived at my mother’s house at 4:45 a.m. I didn’t tell her about the gun, just that Carmine and I had a fight. And I never told my father.

I’d had enough, nothing else mattered but getting away from Carmine Agnello.

IT CAME as no surprise one day when I received a call from my father’s lawyer, Bruce Cutler. He said a DA in Chicago had contacted him. A man recently convicted of robbery and manslaugh ter had called the DA’s office looking to make a deal.

The man claimed Carmine had asked him to put a “contract out on my life.” The man claimed my soon-to-be ex had offered to pay him $50,000.

As a matter of law, the DA contacted Cutler.

“Young Victoria, I don’t believe the man. Obviously he’s desperate and looking to get out of jail. I don’t believe Carmine would go that far,” Cutler said.

I was not so sure.

There was a doctor, a female psychologist, who was working with Carmine just before he went to jail. She called and asked me to meet her.

“Look,” she said, “my visits with my patients are confidential. But if they tell me something that indicates they could harm themselves or someone else, I am obligated by law to report it.

“It’s none of my business what goes on between you and your husband. However, when a man tells me he has ‘thoughts of killing his wife,’ I have to take them seriously.”

From “This Family of Mine” by Victoria Gotti. Copyright © 2009 by Victoria Gotti. Printed by per mission of Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.