Salvatore Sammy The Bull Gravano

Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, the famed New York mob underboss-turned-informer, is making a new life in Phoenix with no fears that his former Mafia compatriots will come seeking revenge. Since leaving the federal witness protection program, Gravano has a business, a publicist and a lawyer. In a rare interview, Gravano told the Arizona Republic that he feels safe because he's become pals with FBI agents and U.S. marshals, who visit and talk with him by phone.

The son of former mob hit man Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano has been arrested by federal agents on organized crime charges from New York. Gerard Gravano, who was arrested Tuesday in neighboring Scottsdale, and his father were charged with witness tampering, conspiring to commit witness tampering, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise and possession with intent to distribute the drug Ecstasy in New York and Arizona.

Mob killer Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano told a federal judge in New York City that he wants to keep his lawyer in his drug case, even though she's a criminal defendant herself. Government prosecutors had argued the attorney, Lynne Stewart, should be barred from the case to protect Gravano's interests. Stewart, 62, was indicted last week in an alleged conspiracy to relay messages from another imprisoned client, blind cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, to his radical followers.

The government on Friday wrapped up its case against John Gotti, telling jurors that "murder is the heart and soul" of the Gambino organized-crime family. "Murder played a central role in this enterprise," Assistant U.S. Atty. John Gleeson said. He added that Gotti, as head of the crime family, "did not go out and shoot people in the face, he had other people do it for him."

Lynne F. Stewart is a veteran criminal lawyer who can address a jury with the charm and clarity of a kindergarten teacher--a position she once held in New York's public school system. She can be warm and grandmotherly to reporters and clients alike. At the same time, she knows how to talk tough. She once called former Assistant U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald "a crusader, and I mean that in a medieval sense." Fitzgerald was the chief prosecutor in the bombings of two U.S.

John Gotti masterminded the assassination of the head of the nation's largest organized crime family so he could replace him, a federal prosecutor charged Wednesday at the start of the alleged crime boss' trial. In his opening argument to a jury of six men and six women, U.S. Atty. Andrew J. Maloney predicted that secret government tape recordings of Gotti--plus the testimony of a top aide, Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano, who has turned government witness--will win a conviction.

Flabbergasted by the carelessness that helped get his son indicted, John J. Gotti said an insane asylum might better suit "Junior" than prison. Prosecutors filed transcripts of a prison conversation taped in January 1998 that the elder Gotti had with his daughter and his brother. The material was submitted in advance of a sentencing hearing set for next Thursday for John A. "Junior" Gotti, who pleaded guilty in April to racketeering, bribery, extortion, fraud and gambling.

John Gotti, the nation's best known organized crime boss, was convicted Thursday of all 13 counts at his murder and racketeering trial, ending his career as leader of America's most powerful Mafia family. "I'll be OK," Gotti told friends and associates in the courtroom after the jury's forewoman pronounced him guilty over and over again. Her words meant Gotti, 51, faces a life sentence in federal prison.

In a trial heavy with testimony of violent assaults, racial tension and revenge killings, Lesester McDaughtery was just what the doctor ordered. Call him the Last Comic Shackled. A member of the Crips and a convicted robber and cocaine distributor who's spent most of the last 30 of his 50 years behind bars, McDaughtery wouldn't seem an obvious candidate for comic relief.

Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano, described by prosecutors as "the most significant witness in the history of organized crime in the United States" and whose testimony played a decisive role in incarcerating Mafia chieftain John Gotti for life, was sentenced Monday to five years in prison--even though he was implicated in 19 murders. The sentence imposed by federal Judge I.