John A. (Junior) Gotti became the acting Gambino family boss when his father, John J. Gotti, was jailed for life following his racketeering and murder conviction in 1992. Junior, who used to visit his dad regularly at the federal prison in Marion, Illinois, has come a long way since 1986, when he threatened to "start choppin' heads off" if a New York Daily News reporter and photographer didn't abandon a stakeout of his father's Howard Beach, Queens home. He's got himself a nice  home, plenty of cash, and despite some hassles with the law, has done quite well for himself -- at least up until January, 1998 when he was hit with racketeering charges. GOTTI: Rise & Fall, the book about Junior's dad that Gene Mustain and I wrote, depicts Junior as just the body-building son of John Gotti until he got his button (official membership in the mob.) Buttonship happened not too long after Junior was captured on FBI videotape bouncing to the beat of his Walkman on Mulberry Street near the Ravenite Social Club, the Gambino family's former Manhattan base of operations in Little Italy. But a few years later, the feds say, the former be-bopper began standing in for his jailed-for-life dad as acting boss.

In 1989, Junior made $300,000 dumping loads of construction waste at a mob-controlled Pennsylvania landfill; a year later, he became a caporegime in the Gambino crime family. By time his father went off to prison for life, he was acting boss and a major target of a federal grand jury in Brooklyn. Before long, he was also a major target of a federal grand jury in Manhattan. In December, 1995, Junior paid $717,800 for a six-bedroom Colonial mansion on three acres of rolling hills in Mill Neck, an exclusive community on the North Shore of Long Island. Previously owned by descendents of a Union Army major general during the Civil War, the estate includes a swimming pool, tennis court and 220-foot dock with a spectacular panorama of Oyster Bay. It would make a lovely home for young Gotti and his family. Junior's lawyer originally said it was merely an investment, but in 1996, young Gotti applied for building permits that indicated he was thinking of moving to the North Shore.

As 1998 rolled around, Junior Gotti was still running things for his father, with state Organized Crime Task Force investigators and FBI agents tailing him and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and in White Plains scrambling to make a racketeering case against him.

Finally, on Jan. 21, 1998, he was arrested on racketeering charges and detained without bail to await trial. He was released on $10 million bond nine months later, confined for the most part to his refurbished Mill Neck mansion. His trial was scheduled for April 5, 1999, but late that afternoon, he pleaded guilty in a deal carrying a maximum of seven years, three months.  His sentencing, originally scheduled for July 8, was put off until Sept. 3, 1999, when he was given 77 months by White Plains Federal Judge Barrington Parker. He began serving his term at Ray Brook federal prison in upstate New York on Oct. 18, 1999.

He was due out in September 2004, but while Junior was living near the Canadian border, a Gambino capo who had been inducted into the crime family the same night as Junior in 1988 told the FBI that Junior was behind the 1992 shooting of outspoken radio talk show host Curtis Sliwa. In July 2004, about six weeks before he was due to be released,  Junior was indicted on federal charges that included the kidnap-shooting of Sliwa. On September 20, 2005, the jury acquitted him of securities fraud and hung 11-1 for conviction on racketeering charges that included the assault on Sliwa. His re-trial on the remaining charges the following March also ended in a mistrial, with the jury hung 8-4 for acquittal. At the third trial involving the Sliwa assault, prosecutors convinced 12 jurors that Junior had ordered the kidnapping but failed to convince them that he had engaged in criminal activity after 1999 and the jury again deadlocked on the racketeering charges, this time voting 8-4 for conviction.

A few weeks later, the government dropped all charges against the Junior Don.

The feds haven't given up yet, however. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and the Queens based FBI squad that nailed his father 15 years ago dusted off some old murder allegations against Junior, including a 1983 Queens barroom slaying, and were looking to take one more shot at making a case against Gotti that will stick.