QUEENS — The 23-year-old grandson of late New York City mobster John Gotti has pleaded guilty to selling prescription drugs as part of a larger distribution ring in Queens and will be sentenced to eight years behind bars, the Queens District Attorney announced Wednesday.
The grandson of the mob boss nicknamed "Teflon Don," also named John, pleaded guilty to criminal sale of a controlled substance and conspiracy and agreed to forfeit over $250,000 in seized drug money.
The younger Gotti was busted with six others last August and accused of selling oxycodone and other prescription drugs in and around Howard Beach and Ozone Park after investigators recovered approximately $250,000 in cash, nearly 500 oxycodone pills as well as drug ledgers during his arrest, the Queens DA's office said.
“Today’s guilty plea sends a message to all drug dealers that we will not tolerate the illegal drug trafficking that is destroying our young people and our communities,” District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement.
“Do not expect any leniency because you are illegally trafficking prescription medications — rather than cocaine or heroin," Brown added. "It cannot be stressed enough that these medications are addictive and dangerous and, when abused, they destroy the lives of those who use them."
Gotti also had a prior arrest in June 2016, when he was pulled over on Cross Bay Boulevard and 162nd Avenue in Howard Beach because of his 2009 Jeep's tinted windows, prosecutors said.
During that stop, police officers searched his car and found more than 200 oxycodone pills as well as more than $7,000 in cash, according to the Queens DA's office.
Gotti also pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a controlled substance in connection to that arrest and agreed to forfeit more than $7,000 in drug money.
He is expected to be sentenced on March 2 to eight years in prison followed by five years of post-release supervision for his August 2016 arrest, and to receive a concurrent four-year sentence and two years of post-release supervision in connection to his June 2016 arrest, prosecutors said.
He is currently being held in jail on $2 million bail.
Detectives used undercover buy operations and the court-authorized monitoring of phone conversations during the investigation allowing them to overhear Gotti discussing his oxycodone trafficking business, prosecutors said.
During his conversations, Gotti said that he sold more than 4,200 pills every month and that his oxycodone trafficking business generated approximately $1.6 million a year, prosecutors said.
The group was selling oxycodone pills for $21 to $30 each.
The cases against other defendants arrested along with Gotti are currently pending in court, according to the Queens DA's office.
Gotti's grandfather earned the nickname "The Teflon Don" for escaping repeated brushes with prosecutors before being convicted in 1992 on federal racketeering and murder charges.
He died in federal prison in 2002 at the age of 61.
