VIDEO: “The Gotti Regime – Meet John Jr.” | 52 Topics w/ Frank Fiordilino | Ep. 13
Chris Kasparoza 52 Topics w/ Frank Fiordilino is a YouTube show hosted by Brett from the YouTube channel NYC CRIME SPOT and Frank Fiordilino, who testified that he was a Bonanno crime family associate before he became a government witness in 2004.
Both are from Queens, NY. Fiordilino, from Ridgewood. A tough, gritty area not far from the nicer, wealthier Howard Beach where John Gotti Sr. lived with his family.
During their February 26, 2025 episode — The Gotti Regime – Meet John Jr. — Fiordilino recalled his memories of John Gotti’s son, John Jr., and others abusing, bullying, cheating, exploiting, robbing, and taking advantage of people weaker than them, and getting away with it and other “scumbag shit” because of John Gotti Sr.’s name and reputation.
You can watch the video below. Quotes from the episode, with timestamps, are transcribed beneath it.
52 Topics w/ Frank Fiordilino: https://youtube.com/@52Topics
NYC CRIME SPOT: https://youtube.com/@nyccrimespot
(03:50)
Fiordilino: “They did stuff like that. They would go for uh, kids in the neighborhood and ask him to do a favor, and put a couple of bets in, and when the kid lost, he’d act like he had nothin’ to do with it. And then when the kid was like, ‘Well, I don’t have this kind of money.’ He goes, ‘Well, ask your parents. I mean what are you gonna do, rat me out? Then you’re a rat.’ You know, so use that f-ckin’ double edge sword with them.”
(04:17)
Fiordilino: “He used John Alite all the f-ckin’ time to do stuff… and then eventually, um, gave people the green light, to like um, ‘I didn’t tell him to do that stuff. I remember when he did that. Yeah, you guys on your, you guys want him, go get him.’ You know, and, and, he, he did shit like that.
There was an incident with, with my, my friend I grew up with, Paul (Ragusa). You know, um, he got into with, with uh, Patsy Conte’s uh, nephew. So you had these fuckin’ 28-year-old guys come down there, and just work the kid over, with pool sticks nonetheless. 28-year-old guys pickin’ on a fuckin’ 19-year-old kid, you know what I mean. With pool sticks. Uh, I mean— and, and, and, and it seemed like they were untouchable, and he loved it. He (John Gotti Jr.) loved the fear, he loved that— but, so if this was goin’ on in places like my neighb’, and his friends were doing the same shit, and at the end of the day they would just go up to Junior, and Junior say ‘Ah, fuck ‘em, who cares?’ At the end of the day, so imagine what he was doin’ in his neighborhood, in Woodhaven, in Ozone Park. There’s, there’s hundreds of stories like this. You know there’s a incident at the, at the bar. I think you heard this, where uh, there was a stabbing, the kid (Danny Silva) got stabbed, and then the, the kid (John Cennamo) who witnessed the stabbing, with Junior there – allegedly, allegedly, okay. But there’s, there’s a big, uh, question mark on this one. Um, later was found hung. And, and, uh, and, and it was, and it, and it seemed like he didn’t hung himself, he was the only witness there. So, all this was goin’ on, and, and by the time— I think what happens is, by the time his dad goes to prison, he starts like eliminatin’ himself from these crimes, and these things he did, all these people he pissed off. Figurin’ look, I’m made now, I’m gonna go to a structure that’s, that the mob’s or the Gambino family, and, and, eliminate suspicion from anything I had to do, and he would put that on the street. ‘I don’t know this guy, well I didn’t do this with him, or I didn’t know,’ you know, like. And, and, and a lot of it is their own people even felt uh, disrespected, you know.”
(11:34)
Fiordilino: “Imagine livin’ in that neighborhood, fuckin’, you had to be like, um, lower yourself to, to, to these people, even when you were right. And, and then, I could see, it wasn’t only us, because we had, isolated incidents. But we had them though, you know. Um.”
Brett: “Yeah, but that’s really interesting because, like, me as an outsider right, I know as like a rule that, there was a lot of people in that neighborhood that loved him. I mean his funeral was like this big spectacle, um. So like, are, you’re speaking strictly from a criminal’s perspective I assume. Not like the, the neighborhood people like, ‘Oh, John Gotti, the fireworks, the this, the that, he’s a good man.’ Like, you’re speaking of like— from”
Fiordilino: “No.”
Brett: “a criminal perspective, because the, the picture that a lot of people get painted is of course that, everybody loves him, everybody loves this, Gotti this, Gotti that, uh, the neighborhood rioted for him when they were”
Fiordilino: “Right.”
Brett: “doing this. So, what perspective are you speaking from?”
Fiordilino: “No no, no, not at all. I’m talking about everyone, and um—”
Brett: “Everyone.”
Fiordilino: “Yeah, of course. Yeah, and these people that loved him, their kids didn’t live in that neighborhood, or got exploited, or used, by his, his kids, just because, he was who he was. That was, that was their thing, believe me when I tell you. Um, you know, and, and, and what happened I think when his dad goes away, he probably thought about it, said ‘Wait a minute. I burnt a lot of bridges. I’m not gonna do this thing, you know what, I’m just gonna go into uh, you know, doin’ things that mobsters do.’ Keep lowkey and, have different friends, go play, go paintballin’ with Michael DiLeonardo, Mikey Scars, Upstate New York and his friends. And kind of, like um, alienate from the guys I used to have do these fuckin’ things for me, you know. And, and one of ‘em was uh, um, one of ‘em was like uh, Alite, and, he, he, he even had like uh, (Joe) O’Kane go explain to Vito that he has nothin’ to do with us no more. And, and, Vito Guzzo, and um, I don’t know. I don’t know why. I, I think today if O’Kane would have found out he, he went for his 302s, I don’t think he would have helped him, and um, in that case.”
(21:44)
Brett: “So yeah, so all you guys start getting into criminality, uh, Gotti’s in prison for life. I guess, Junior’s career is somewhat—”
Fiordilino: “Well, he’s focused… he’s focused in the mob, you know. But at the same time while he’s doing that kind of thing— he’s, alienating what happened in the past. Figured, if I don’t have these guys that I done a, done a lot for me, then shit’ll go away. That’s, uh, I think he thought… But it didn’t work out that way. Um, and, and, and, and it’s strange because, he takes 302s, and, and, and, and he, you know there’s deflection there. That’s something that he did, with a lot of the kid, the guys he was, they were doing shit for him, and then he, he went cold turkey on them too. Okay, he was act, he was uh, his father’s messenger, he was a acting boss, but, I get that. But at the same time, he also acted like he never knew some of these people, and, and, and that kind of uh, was a sentiment that was goin’ on, uh, between a lot of people in those neighborhoods.”
(24:13)
Fiordilino: “That’s what it was. It was, they could do whatever they want, and they got away, and, and it wasn’t necessarily all criminals he was, this is a criminal point of view. There was people with uh, regular businesses they felt that, um, they, they would convince them, or borrow money from them, and not pay him back, or uh, uh, if there was a guy loaning money they, they, they think they could get away with it if they don’t pay this guy because, he ain’t gonna tell, because then’ll make it look like a rat or he’s afraid, you know.”
(25:56)
Fiordilino: “There was a lot of scumbag shit goin’ on, thinkin’ well I’m, I’m a Gotti I could get away with it.”
(26:32)
Fiordilino: “But I’ll guarantee you, there’s gonna be a lot of people that agree with me too and might, might be anonymous and say, ‘Well you know what, I remember those days, yes, and he’s right, because that’s how they ran around the neighborhoods.’”
Brett: “Right. Well listen… whether the feedback is negative or positive, I would just hope that it’s coming from people who are at least, in that area, and experience things, and not from somebody like me, who wasn’t there, or from somebody who’s a fuckin’ troll, or whatever it is, who just likes to, blindly stick up for things, just because, they wanna be on, on some fuckin’ team or some shit. So, yeah, anybody from that area, anybody who used to be in The Life, a criminal, or, grew up in certain areas, know certain people, you wanna chime in, uh, that’s a respectable, uh, comment, from you.”
Fiordilino: “Well the thing, the thing that, yeah, well the thing that’s scary about it, I’m outside the bubble, out of this, um, the stuff that, that, there’s a couple incidents that affected people that I knew, friends that I knew. But, um, at the same time— if I’m outside, imagine the ones who were inside the bubble.”
Brett: “Right, right. Yeah.”
Fiordilino: “You know at the end of the day, it was what, what do you say uh, the, the Alite thing was like, ‘That’s not me who did that, that’s John. Do whatever you guys wanna do.’ They, he greenlighted, anybody, basically, to do whatever they had to do to him, for things he told him, a lot of this stuff anyway, I don’t, I don’t know all, that he did himself, so— on that note, um, that’s it, man.”
