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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With Juliette Pappa

Aired June 16, 2002 - 11:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Earlier this month, 17 suspected members and associates of the Gambino crime family were indicted on 68 counts, including witness tampering and extortion. There has been a lot of speculation about the future of the Gambino family in the wake of John Gotti's death. Journalist Juliette Pappa of New York's WINS Radio joins us now to talk more about that. Thanks for joining us.

JULIETTE PAPPA, WINS RADIO: Good morning.

WHITFIELD: All right, well, the family name has been high profile because of John Gotti, but since his imprisonment and now death, is the family as powerful or even as intimidating?

PAPPA: Well, I think they're going to have some power problems at the top, because even though John Gotti was in jail for 10 years, he first had his son run the family and then he had his brother Peter running the crime family, so he wanted to keep that hold on the family while he was in prison and authorities say that he tried to give orders from prison as well through the family structure.

Now the son is in prison and the brother is in prison, and it remains to be seen what power struggles will take place at the top, if loyalists will become the boss and the underboss, as they are now. They are underboss and consigliere, or whether some other people will take over for that top spot.

WHITFIELD: And is the question too, if there is going to be someone whose going to take the top spot so to speak, should it be a high profile person or fairly low profile?

PAPPA: Well, I think they've learned their lessons. Many other of the crime family bosses here in New York were not at all pleased with John Gotti's high profile. They all stayed very low profile, and if you've noticed in the past several years, they like to keep it that way.

So if lessons were learned, I think whoever takes that top spot will keep a very low profile, won't be heard on tapes if he can help it, and won't be seen in many of these clubs or fancy restaurants that John Gotti used to frequent.

WHITFIELD: So if there's this power struggle then, I suppose this simply means that, you know, the mob is still very much alive or this sort of family business dealings is very much alive. What kind of business are we talking about then? How is it disguised these days or what's being carried out?

PAPPA: Well, quite frankly, I don't think the mob will ever die. As long as there is illegal money to be made, the mob is going to figure out a way to make it.

Their mainstay, I believe, is sports betting. They make millions and millions of dollars in sports betting. That is their backbone. They've moved into pump and dump stock schemes, telephone cards.

Some people question whether they're too traditional or provincial to move into some of the high tech world, and they're there in some instances. They've already moved into it. So they will make money and they will stay alive.

WHITFIELD: Is it still very much or are we seeing these days it's very much underground, or in certain communities is it pretty widely known and you know common knowledge that this sort of activity is still being carried out?

PAPPA: Well, law enforcement certainly knows it's carried out. There were recent indictments, as you mentioned, of the Gambino crime family for the control of unions, control of construction, control of concrete companies.

It's still active and this is what they've traditionally done. This is what works for them and they're still doing it. So, whether you see them all high profile in a community, I don't know about that.

In fact, there was a small social club in Queens, New York right around the corner from where John Gotti's wake was being held and I'm sure law enforcement knows about that one. The local community knew about that one, but I don't think we're going to see the general public at large knowing where that is.

WHITFIELD: No celebrity of the likes of John Gotti ever again in your view, at least as pertains to the Gambino family?

PAPPA: Yes, I don't know if there's any up-and-coming in the ranks that prefer to go that way. Perhaps privately they will. But I don't know that they're going to be so showy and as flamboyant because it got John Gotti into all sorts of trouble, and as you had seen in the previous report, it was the worst possible thing that could have been happening to the Gambino crime family.

John Gotti was caught on tape. He was caught on surveillance tapes, because he was out and about in a very public way. I don't think you're going to see that. And in the case of some of the other crime bosses, some of them, you don't even know who they are anymore and we had a smaller family that really crawled back up into power because their boss Messina kept a very low profile.

WHITFIELD: All right, Juliette Pappa of WINS Radio, thank you very much for joining us from New York.

PAPPA: Thank you.

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