evel. The second was that Gotti met Neil Dellacroce, an important under boss to Carl Gambino. Neil accomplished Carlo's violent dirty work from a headquarters in Little Italy's Mulberry Street called the Ravenite Social Club. Neil, who was disappointed that his only son Armond became a drug addict, saw in Gotti a young protg who was a younger version of his own violent, macho self. Like Gotti, he had a weakness for gambling and one such episode got him in trouble with the IRS. Neil ended up in jail for at least a year. With both Fatico and Dellacroce in the slammer, John Gotti was handed a lot of new responsibilities. For one thing, he gained incredible visibility by reporting directly to Carlo Gambino while Fatico was in jail. Before that opportunity, Carlo did not particularly value Gotti's crowd in Ozone Park. To the sophisticated Carlo, they were just a bunch of hotheaded thugs. This was a chance for Gotti to show himself in a different light. Gotti brought home to the Ozone Park crowd Carlo's prohibition on drug dealing. But the warnings fell on deaf ears. Many of the men very close to Gotti were dealing and using heroin and cocaine. But Gotti kept the faith by warning them: "If you're dealin,' you're f..kin' playin' with fire, and if you get caught, you're f..kin' dead." Through Neil Dellacroce, Gotti and his Ozone Park boys had a chance to vastly improve their status under Carlo. Carlo had lost a nephew in 1973 to a kidnapper who collected the $100K ransom and then murdered the boy. Gotti was given the opportunity to get revenge for Carlo. The kidnapper was a man named James McBratney. Gotti, Angelo Ruggiero and another one of the Bergin soldiers dressed up as cops and shot McBratney in a pub in front of several witnesses. Angelo was arrested first and later, the police also arrested Gotti for the murder. Fortunately for Gotti, Carlo gave the McBratney case to his talented lawyer Roy Cohn who was abl...
