Chris Kasparoza Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo was one of the most impactful government witnesses ever against the mob. He testified at 15 or 16 trials that he was inducted into the Gambino crime family on December 24, 1988, became a Gambino captain during the 1990s, and became a government cooperator in 2002 following his indictment on racketeering-murder charges.
DiLeonardo testified that he was good friends with John Gotti Sr., a close friend of the Gotti family, and during the 1990s became John Gotti Jr.’s closest friend in the Gambino family. He told jurors that they were inducted into the Gambino family together on December 24, 1988, and that he later baptized John Gotti Jr.’s son John.
John Gotti Jr. has confirmed publicly that he was very close with DiLeonardo, they got made together, and that DiLeonardo was a Gambino captain. However, when trying to discredit DiLeonardo as a liar, such as with his testimony regarding Gotti Jr.’s alleged involvement in the 1990 murder of accused Gambino soldier Louis DiBono, Gotti Jr. made false and incredibly deceptive public statements that should make one doubt his own credibility.
Read More: John Gotti Jr. Lies about The Louis DiBono Murder, Part 1
Since 2022, DiLeonardo has hosted the popular YouTube show, No Excuses, with author RJ Roger, where DiLeonardo frequently praises John Gotti Sr.
As for Roger– in 2024, he published The Don: 36 Rules of The Bosses. Clicking the book cover below will take you to its Amazon page via affiliate an link. If you purchase it through there in eBook, paperback, or hardcover — not audiobook — you won’t be charged extra, but a commission may be generated that helps support this website.
In 2015, DiLeonardo was interviewed by Cosa Nostra News. The following are excerpts from their May 7, 2015 story, Michael DiLeonardo On the Gotti Reign.
Link to the full story: cosanostranews.com/2015/05/michael-dileonardo-on-gotti-reign.html
COSA NOSTRA NEWS EXCLUSIVE
After reading Michael “Mikie Scars” DiLeonardo’s testimony, we wanted to know more about him.
Michael DiLeonardo knows Cosa Nostra, and we spent a week asking him questions…
John Gotti Senior died… on June 10, 2002. “Mikie Scars” was filmed by the Feds attending the Dapper Don’s wake.
Days after Gotti’s burial, Michael and others were arrested based on Craig DePalma’s sealed Grand Jury testimony.
Michael and John Junior were both made on Christmas Eve 1988. Sammy the Bull ran the ceremony.
Michael noticed that Junior underwent an instant change following their induction.
“It happens with a lot of guys,” DiLeonardo said. “As soon as they get their finger pinched they wake up the next day and get hit with all this information and knowledge. They think: This is royalty. Most guys get dumber instead of smarter” after getting their button.
He admits the two men had good times together. John Senior had wanted DiLeonardo close to his son. “John Senior saw something in me that he thought would be good medicine for his son.”
Real difficulties between the two didn’t commence until years later, in 1996 and 1997, DiLeonardo said.
“We started going back and forth over things. He’s not supposed to get pinched for Scores, I’m supposed to be pinched for Scores. I’m supposed to be pinched for Scores.”
DiLeonardo said that greed, a major trait of Junior Gotti, was a major problem for the Gambino crime family.
Junior liked to hang around with fellow weightlifters. Many injected a daily diet of steroids to bulk up. Muscles were common ground for Junior, Mikie Scars said. “Junior had Willie Marshall around him. Junior knew he was a corrections officer. I’d break his balls over this.”
Michael explained: “His father was charismatic. When Junior put the suit on, he knew he wasn’t his father. That’s why he felt more comfortable in the baseball cap and the sweatsuit. His persona was his muscles. He looked in mirrors, walked down 101st Avenue getting his picture taken. That was his armor, his muscles.
“He didn’t understand this is Cosa Nostra. You could be an old man and live off a lifetime of respect.” Rather, his mentality was: “‘I’m Gotti, I have muscles,” DiLeonardo said. “He’d sit at the table in a restaurant and take a deep breath and flex his pecs, with just me sitting there.”
Junior also gave Michael pause with the way he spoke of his father. “Junior referred to his father as a god,” DiLeonardo said.
“He also called his father the “chief” during meetings with the administrations of other families.
“I spoke to [Jackie] D’Amico and told him to also speak to Junior about calling John Senior chief to other families. Each family has its own chief, they don’t wanna hear that.”
The Gotti Monarchy
“John Senior wanted to take over the Commission and be the “boss of bosses.” He wanted to run all five families – that was his main goal. So his son must have known that.
“For them, it was a monarchy – the Gottis tried to hold on like the Persicos. It doesn’t work through bloodlines.”
The Persicos led the Colombo family through a bloody civil war to maintain their power. Carmine Persico is still the boss, DiLeonardo said.
John Gotti Senior was unique in that he had no family member to give him admittance to Cosa Nostra.
“He took over by violence. Junior felt entitled, even though he had no lineage. The Gottis had no lineage when it came to Cosa Nostra. It started and stopped with John Senior.”
Gotti Senior was “a street guy from Fulton-Rockaways. He was a tough fucking guy. That is how he got around, through Angelo Ruggiero, then through Neil [Aniello “Neil” Dellacroce], who rose to the position of underboss after Carlo Gambino removed “Joe the Blonde” from the position.”
“He blasted his way into the mob — he came the tough guy way in,” Michael added.
“Whatever his father had” in terms of charisma and street smarts, Junior didn’t have.
Still, Junior “was a smart guy, well read.”
Junior Never Sought Advice
Junior’s problem in Cosa Nostra was that he didn’t appreciate the knowledge that could have been easily passed down to him, according to DiLeonardo. Junior went to military school and “thought he was running a battalion. He didn’t realize the dynamic of what Cosa Nostra was.
“John Junior thought he was in the army. He didn’t know how to be the boss of anything. He thought his guys were his troops.
“Because his name was Gotti he knows everything.”
Rather, DiLeonardo was surprised to see that Junior Gotti had a habit of stealing Michael’s words and using them as if they were his own.
Some of “Mikie Scars” advice to Junior would be parroted by Junior to others, including DiLeonardo himself, as if Junior was telling him something he didn’t already know.
In fact, DiLeonardo says some of the things he told Junior are in Shadow of My Father — “certain things that I told him that he never gave me credit for.”
That’s how Junior was. “We’d talk and a week later during conversation he’d use something I had told him like he was telling me.” When he did this, “he’d lift one eyebrow up. I was like “What are you saying? You had an epiphany there?”
“We both cooperated, John Alite and myself — he can say we’re punks etc. But I could have crushed him. If I wanted to lie, I could have put him in numerous murders, which I did not.
“I did not. I could have and I did not.
“People can’t see it or don’t want to see it. They wanna champion the Gotti cause when they see him” in the media and on the Internet. “People are enamored with it. But unless you were inside, you can’t know what it truly means.”
Johnny Alite touched a nerve, Michael said.
“When the 302 came out, there is no way John Junior could spin and get away from it.
In the 302, “he blames two separate murders on two separate guys. And now he says he lied about it. To me, that is less than rat.”
“Junior will never convince the street guys that what he did was right — meaning how he fought his trials and how he tried to explain away the 302. He’s done in the street.
“It’s the public — his fan club.
“He has to keep up the image. He will never ever forgive John Alite — because of what he, John Junior, did to himself.”
RELATED: Video: John Gotti Jr. Lies about His 302 (Preview)
RELATED: John Gotti Jr. Lies about The Louis DiBono Murder, Part 1
