Unglamorous end for dapper don who beat murder raps but died in jail hospital

Throat cancer kills John Gotti, head of New York crime family.

John Gotti, the Mafia legend whose flamboyant wardrobe and talent for evading murder convictions made him the most glamorous American gangster since Al Capone, died an unglamorous death yesterday, submitting to complications from throat cancer in a Missouri prison hospital. He was 61.

He had been moved to the hospital, in Springfield, from the maximum-security prison in Illinois where he was serving a life term in solitary confinement since 1992 for racketeering and his role in six killings - a sentence which finally rendered obsolete his media nickname, the Teflon Don.

In a statement, the hospital said Gotti died at 5.45pm BST "after a lengthy illness." He was diagnosed with cancer in 1998.

"A most remarkable and special man is gone and I will miss him," said his longtime lawyer, Bruce Cutler. "You will never see the likes of John Gotti again. He is a champion in my book." An alternative perspective was provided by Bruce Mouw, a former FBI agent who helped convict him. "He is responsible for the deaths of scores of individuals," he said of a man he called "a very vicious and ruthless boss".

Gotti reigned for six years as the head of New York's Gambino crime family, promoting himself to the position according to normal mafia guidelines by assassinating his predecessor, Paul "Big Paulie" Castellano. It was a testament to his passion for the Hollywood myth of organised crime in America that he arranged for the killing to be carried out by a gang of hitmen in matching trenchcoats who surprised Castellano as he left a Manhattan steakhouse.

Soaking up attention - he made it to the cover of Time magazine and Andy Warhol silkscreens - Gotti preened for the cameras in $2,000 double-breasted suits and $400 ties as he embarked upon a criminal career aided by witnesses who suffered convenient memory lapses as soon as they entered a courtroom and jurors who proved happy to deliver acquittals in return for cash windfalls.

Bribe

In 1984, when Gotti was charged with attacking a motorist over a traffic argument, his alleged victim proved suddenly reluctant to identify him in court. A juror in one racketeering acquittal was convicted of receiving a $60,000 bribe; payoffs are believed to have been involved in an attempted murder case.

But courting attention was his downfall. Gotti's lifestyle attracted the attention of prosecutors, infuriated and embarrassed that Gotti slipped through their hands during an otherwise rigorous crackdown on organised crime that saw the US mafia withering by the mid-1980s.

Detectives bugged his headquarters and his social club in Little Italy, recording expletive-littered diatribes about "whackings" he planned to revenge the smallest infractions. "He didn't come in when I called," Gotti said at one point, explaining his motivation for murder. "You tell this punk, I, me, John Gotti, will sever his motherfuckin' head off," he warned in another conversation.

He was finally convicted when his sidekick Salvatore "Sammy Bull" Gravano became a state witness, leading to the verdict which prompted James Fox, the FBI agent who pursued him for years, to deliver a crushing epitaph: "The Teflon is gone, the don is covered with Velcro, and every charge in the indictment stuck."

Jurors in the trial were so heavily sequestered - to protect them from financial inducements and rumours of accidents that might befall them in the future - that even the judge did not know their names. They found Gotti guilty on 13 counts of murder and racketeering after a trial marked by the defendant's inquiries about the prosecution's hygiene - "When was the last time those punks washed their hair?" - and gestures described by the judge as "designed to comment upon the character" of government lawyers.

When five of the defence's six witnesses were disqualified, Gotti paraded his trademark nonchalance. "What happened to our defence?" he asked. "I shoulda put on a little song and dance."

Gotti was subsequently accused of continuing to mastermind the Gambino family from the prison at Marion, Illinois, one of America's toughest penal regimes. But the glamour of gangsterhood appears to have died with him: his son and alleged criminal heir, John "Junior" Gotti, received a six-year sentence in 1999 for racketeering and a less welcome newspaper nickname, Dumbfella.

With mafia convictions dwindling, the New York mob appeared to have crumbled since Gotti Sr assumed power - then, the Gambino family alone had 300 "made" members and more than 2,000 "associates". The collapse appeared to be reversing in 2000 when 38 people were charged with illegally "taxing" construction work in New York to the tune of $40m over three years.

But the decline of the most notorious icons has continued apace. In April, Vincent "Chin" Gigante, once accused of conspiring to murder Gotti, and who had mumbled in public for years in an apparent pretence of insanity, was ruled fit to stand trial on several organised crime charges. Last week, Gotti's older brother Peter, the alleged new Gambino boss, was indicted on charges of racketeering and loan sharking.

But John Gotti himself managed to live out a criminal version of the American dream, reaching the top through a combination of hard work and loaded weapons. Mr Cutler, his lawyer, once called him a man of "pride, principle and dignity...John Gotti always made a point of proclaiming that he was his own man, and I think a lot of people find a very appealing message in there".

Whack! Victims of the mafia boss

Jimmy McBratney A loan shark suspected of involvement in the murder of the then Gambino boss's nephew, McBratney was accosted in a Staten Island bar in 1973 by Gotti and his accomplices Angelo Ruggiero and Ralph "Ralphie Wigs" Galione. They pretended to be police and planned to escort him outside and shoot him. But McBratney demanded to see their badges. They declined, and shot him instead.

Ralph 'Ralphie Wigs' Galione The man who pulled the trigger in the McBratney killing was never to enjoy a fulfilling mafia career. After Galione was murdered in Brooklyn in December 1973 - just before the McBratney trial - Gotti cut a plea bargain which led to a three-year prison sentence for manslaughter. He served less than two years.

John Favara A furniture worker and neighbour of Gotti's, Favara was driving his car home from work in 1980 when it hit Gotti's 12-year-old son Frank, killing the boy. Though the crash was an accident it kicked off a run of bad luck for Favara, who received death threats and had the word "Murderer" spraypainted on his car. Two days later a woman called a nearby police precinct and said he was going to be "eliminated". Shortly afterwards witnesses described seeing Favara bundled into a car. He was said to have been killed and stuffed into a barrel into which cement was poured. "I don't know what happened to him," Gotti's wife Victoria said. "I am not sorry if something did."

Paul Castellano The hit squad hired by Gotti in 1985 to kill the head of the Gambino crime family wore matching trenchcoats and identical fluffy Russian hats, apparently to distract attention from their faces. "Big Paulie" was shot six times in the head.