HE was the ultra-violent hitman who showed total commitment to the New York mafia – battering wise guys with his infamous baseball bat and gunning down anyone who got in their way.
Now, revealing the blood-soaked secrets of his life as a gangland enforcer for kingpin John Gotti, John Alite tells how he was so uncompromising that he took his seven-year-old son on one hit – before turning ‘rat’ as his beloved mob sold him down the river and fleeced him out of millions.
Former Gambino mobster John Alite turned into a government ‘rat’Credit: Getty – Contributor
He was banged up in a hellhole ‘concentration camp’ jailCredit: Supplied
Alite built his name working for notorious mafia kingpin John Gotti, pictured arriving at court in 1990Credit: AP
John Gotti Jr (centre) and John Alite (left) were friends in the mid-1980s, before turning enemiesCredit: Refer to Source
Over the course of his notorious underworld career, Alite admits to beating up around hundred people and murdering six.
But when the Gambino family’s criminal enterprise led the New Yorker to a “concentration camp” type jail, they turned on him and stole his business’s money.
Alite, 63, realised there is “no loyalty” in the mob and rather than spending the rest of his life in prison agreed to give evidence against them in 2009.
He was branded a “rat” after testifying against John Gotti Jr, who took over running the Gambino operation when his dad was sent to prison in 1992.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, though, he claims it was his colleagues who turned on him first.
Alite, who is friends with the US President Donald Trump and knew the gangster Robert De Niro played in Goodfellas, reveals: “I was in a Brazilian prison and the Mafia turned on me, it wasn’t the other way around.
“The jails in Brazil were like concentration camp jails which were insane with violence.
“It’s freezing inside in winter and extremely hot in the summer and there are rats all over the jail with 60 guys in a cell. The diseases and mosquitos.
“If you want to have a decent life, you have to stay away from the street life. Or you’re going to have nothing but suffering, jail, misery and death.”
Even though Alite’s Albanian father wasn’t a gangster, he did grow up amongst the mobster crowd in Queens, New York.
His dad was a boxer and his uncle ran a card game for a member of the Gambino gang.
Alite says: “My uncle was a dealer for the card game. So, I was around these gangsters since I was a baby and they all had a big influence on me.”
The Godfather in the neighbourhood was John Gotti and Alite became friends with his son.
The Gambino clan told him to join them after they discovered he was selling cocaine in Queens.
You’re going to have nothing but suffering, jail, misery and death
John Alite
Alite quickly learned the complexity of allegiances when he followed Gotti Jr’s request to “hurt” a guy.
Gotti Sr started “slapping” Alite in a basement of a restaurant – because the person he’d attacked was “protected” by a Gambino “soldier.”
Alite recalls: “He said what he did to me was just to show others. He said ‘I’m sorry I had to do that, but I had to.’”
Killer’s instinct
It was Alite’s violent nature which made him invaluable to the criminal organisation that ruled New York through fear.
Alite, who had a baseball scholarship at the University of Tampa in Florida when he was young, had a reputation for using one of the huge wooden bats on targets.
He says: “I remember 70 names of people I baseball batted over the years. Others I had no idea exactly who they were because they just would tell me to go get them.
“I was a different guy back then, who knows what I was thinking, but I was very aggressive. I got stabbed a couple of times, I got shot, I got hit by a car because I always put myself out there.
“I’m not a guy who goes with three or four guys because my father and his friends raised me not to be a coward and to me that is a coward if you have to go with several guys.”
I was around these gangsters since I was a baby
John Alite
When the head of a biker gang let it be known he wanted to challenge Alite, the Gambino man went into the bar alone.
He remembers: “Their boss was sitting in a chair with a girl on his lap. I asked him, ‘I heard you’re looking for me?’
“When I said my name you could see from his face he’s not so tough because I had come all by myself, he’s thinking to himself that this guy doesn’t give a s***.
“I said to him, ‘Tell her to get off your lap.’ And he looked at her and he said to her, ‘Don’t move.’ I said, ‘You want to stay?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ I just took the knife out and stuck it in his leg and he was screaming like crazy.”
Alite with his trademark baseball batCredit: Instagram
The murder of crime boss and Gotti rival Paul Castellano and Thomas BilottiCredit: Getty
New York’s mafia wars saw rival mob bosses gunned down across the city, including one hit in a barbershopCredit: AP
Alite was front page news when he gave evidence against Gotti JrCredit: Getty
Shoot on sight
Far worse was inflicted on anyone who got on the wrong side of the Gotti family.
Among the hits Alite carried out for them was shooting dead a cocaine dealer who had dared to claim he was working for them.
One of his sons was aged seven when Alite inflicted punishment on one of his own wayward associates, who he’d spotted in a petrol station store.
He recalls: “I told my brother-in-law stay here with my son. They were right around the corner to where the store was.
I got stabbed a couple of times, I got shot, I got hit by a car
John Alite
“It was close enough you could hear the gun shots. I went in, punched him in the face, shot him, then walked back out. My son said to me, ‘What was that, daddy, I heard noises?’
“I said to him it was fireworks kids were playing. That’s how extreme I was.”
Alite knew plenty of other dangerous men, including Johnny Carneglia who is alleged to have been involved in several hits on senior gangsters but was only convicted of 𝒹𝓇𝓊𝑔 dealing.
He says: “I’d say one of the toughest gangsters in my era people don’t know is Johnny Carneglia. Johnny went to jail for 50 years for heroin. I was very close to him.
“The reason I liked Johnny very much is he rode motorcycles and he wasn’t your typical gangster. He drove speedboats.”
No honour among thieves
John Gotti Sr’s police mug shotCredit: Getty
Alite says he was ‘aggressive’ when he was a young manCredit: Instagram
Alite was promoted to the rank of captain in the Gambino family in 1990 but couldn’t be a “made man” because he didn’t have Italian heritage.
He became rich, running nightclubs and laundering money via his valet parking business.
Alite says: “I had several night clubs, a candy store, two glass shops. I spent millions on attorneys. I would take exotic trips around the world. I’ve probably been to around 40 countries.”
With the threat of jail time for racketeering becoming a reality in early 2004, he fled to Brazil, where he was arrested by the end of the year.
In the movies you see mafioso being looked after while they are inside, but that is Hollywood fiction.
During his three years in the South American cell his former colleagues took advantage of him.
The ex-gangster says: “When I went to prison, they were stealing my money – my nightclub business money. I was making three, four million a year and also from my parking company.”
When I went to prison, they were stealing my money
John Alite
Alite also heard rumours that Gambino family bosses were giving evidence to the FBI against him.
He alleges: “They started cooperating against me. I started reading the papers and my lawyers told me, ‘John, who you staying loyal to? These guys have completely screwed you over.’”
In 2007, Alite was transferred to a prison in Florida and a couple of years later he co-operated with the authorities.
He pleaded guilty to six murders, racketeering and armed robbery, but secured a reduced sentence because he agreed to give evidence against John Gotti Jr in a 2009 murder conspiracy trial.
The jury could not agree on a verdict and Gotti Jr was acquitted. Later Alite was given ten years in jail but was released early in 2012.
Lost daughter
John Alite with daughter Cheslea (left) who died aged 30Credit: Instagram
So many years of incarceration meant he’d missed precious time with his five children.
His daughter Chelsea came to live with him, but tragedy struck in August 2022 when she died aged 30 after accidentally taking the deadly 𝒹𝓇𝓊𝑔 fentanyl.
Alite says: “She texted one of her girlfriends and she took a Percocet pill but she didn’t know it was fentanyl. She lay back down on bed and didn’t get up again.
“It’s devastating. Your life will never be the same again. I pray a lot more.
She didn’t know it was fentanyl
John Alite
“Retribution of what happened to my daughter is nothing to do with what I did in my life in the past. I didn’t give people fentanyl.”
He has turned his back on crime and was elected as a councillor for the Republican Party in a borough in New Jersey earlier this year.
The motivational speaker is also an actor and will appear in a movie called Pony, which has just finished filming.
Wannabe gangsters
Alite is not impressed by the modern-day mafia men, who he reckons are more posers than killers.
He concludes: “They just talk too much. In our era guys got killed very easily. It was very dangerous to talk nonsense.
“Now these days guys are getting away with it because if you’ve got five guys in a restaurant nobody is going to walk in to shoot them anymore.
“In our days we would walk in and shoot them or we would wait till they got out and shoot. But now they don’t have that consequence.
“And it’s almost like a little kid playing cops and robbers. They get dressed up to hang out.
“They want everybody to know they’re a gangster but there’s nothing gangster about them. It’s basically white-collar criminals.”
John Alite’s new movie Pony will be released this year
Alite knew feared hitman Johnny Carneglia and says he was the toughest mobster he knewCredit: Getty
He has also played golf with US President Donald TrumpCredit: Instagram