Podcast: The Racket Report Ep. 46 | Frank Morano, Author RJ Roger on John Gotti
Chris Kasparoza Frank Morano‘s X.com bio reads: TV/Radio commentator, GOP candidate for City Council, raconteur. Staten Island’s Favorite Son. WABC Talk Show Host.
His campaign’s website: MoranoForCouncil.com.
He also hosts a podcast, The Racket Report. The show’s description: Frank Morano goes deep into the world of organized crime, and talks with former mafia bosses, enforcers, and even informants. Listen to the Racket Report every week to get your fill on all the secrets to understand more about mob organizations around the world.
Episode 46, from January 23, 2025, which can be listened to below, featured RJ Roger. The author of The Don: 36 Rules of The Bosses, who co-hosts No Excuses. The popular YouTube show with Michael “Mikey Scars” DiLeonardo, who testified that he was a Gambino family captain before he became a federal cooperator in 2002.
DiLeonardo was one of the government’s most impactful witnesses ever against the mob.
He testified at 15 or 16 trials, including against numerous members of the Gotti family. Such as Peter Gotti, who the government accused of becoming the Gambino family boss after his brother John Gotti Sr. died in 2002. DiLeonardo, who testified against John Gotti Jr. at four trials between 2005-2009, told jurors that he was good friends with John Gotti Sr., got inducted into the Gambino family with Gotti Jr. on Christmas Eve, 1988, and that during the 1990s he became Gotti Jr.’s closest friend in the Gambino family.
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
The Don: 36 Rules of The Bosses was published in November 2024. The book was produced by Joost Elffers, who packaged The 48 Laws of Power and other bestsellers.
Clicking the book cover and links above will take you to The Don and The 48 Laws of Power’s Amazon pages via affiliate links. Should you purchase them through there in eBook, paperback, or hardcover — not audiobook — you will not be charged extra, but a commission may be generated that helps support this website.
The following is an excerpt from Frank Morano’s podcast with RJ Roger:
FM: “I have to ask you about… we’ve mentioned John Gotti a couple of times. How was he, as a mob boss?”
RJ: “John Gotti was the street guy’s boss. He was, somebody that… the everyday guy, like when Sammy said… John Gotti put the gangsters back in charge, essentially… it was a little different underneath Paul… John was loyal to the life. He believed, he was such a purist, the strongest minded person I may have researched, um, ever… he stacks well against any historical figure over a hundred years in this country, as far as, when he said, Cosa Nostra till I die, be it an hour from now, be it a hundred years from now when I’m in jail, it’s gon’ be a Cosa, Cosa Nostra. John Gotti’s one of the guys that I find, boy, did he live on it. Died on it, truly, truly seemed to believe in it. That kind of guy’s inspiring to, a guy that signs up for that life. You wanna know that your general is gonna walk into the field with you… That’s a guy that’s easy to follow. As a boss, I think he was a really, I would say he was a bad administrator. I think he enjoyed being boss more. It will look like he basked in the glory of being boss, but a lot of things around him kind of crumbled and didn’t grow. The Gambino family, I don’t know that it made any strength moves at all. I don’t know that it grew in any way under Gotti. None. I think… you would have to say it only lost power. It, it didn’t build any relationship, it lost relationships. It didn’t have a good relationship with the Commission necessarily. He didn’t get along with Chin. He provoked wars. He started… a civil war in the Colombo family, or tried to… He did a lot of things that ended up backfiring for him. He put the wrong, you know, people in power, clearly, you know… He probably should have kept Ruggerio close to him, because he could at least trust him. I would have took what fate you had to take with dealing with the Lucchese family, but you probably, you know, for that hit that they, that he botched. But you should have kept your long-time people as, as close to you as possible. He started having to rely on people that really wasn’t his day one guys. He had a new circle of people around him. So, all these things kind of ended, kind of played out poorly. My partner in my show, Michael DiLeonardo, thinks he was a good boss. Um, I’ve been to The Ravenite. It’s now a shoe store, but, I’ve talked to the owner of what that shoe store was, and she would tell me stories. Like, people would walk into her store and kiss the floor and say, this is the floor John Gotti walked on. While she’s ringing up a customer that’s buying shoes, people would break the floor and take a piece of the tile and hand her $20 and say, I’m sorry to break your floor, but this is, this is the floor John Gotti walked on. And, so, the street element, man, they, they really found something in him that they connected with. But I don’t know that I would say he, he was a great boss.”
