Informant offers look inside mob

South Philadelphia mob associate John "Johnny Gongs" Casasanto was angling to join New York's Gambino crime family in 2002, but a bullet to the back of the head short-circuited that career move.

None other than John Gotti Jr. backed Casasanto, 35, who hoped to get "straightened out" - formally initiated - after befriending the mob boss while they were inmates in a federal detention center in New York state, according to a key government witness.

The Casasanto-Gotti connection has been described by mob informant John Alite, the prosecution's star witness in the ongoing racketeering trial of Gotti Jr. in federal court in New York City.

Alite, 47, lived in Cherry Hill for several years before moving to Florida about six years ago. He has told authorities that he met with Casasanto several times in 2002.

The tattooed and muscular mob informant said he met with various leaders of the Philadelphia mob during his stay in South Jersey, including those suspected of ordering Casasanto's murder in November 2003.

The Casasanto hit remains a front-burner issue for federal authorities, who hope to include it in a racketeering case aimed at reputed mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi and his top associates.

Whether Alite could provide information that would help authorities wrap up that case is uncertain. But his testimony has provided a candid look at the treacherous world of organized crime and has included a less-than-flattering picture of Gotti Jr., his onetime close friend.

Alite has known Gotti for nearly 20 years. While he could never become a "made" member of the Gambino organization - his parents were from Albania - Alite was a high-level Gotti confidant.

From the witness stand, he described Gotti as a thin-skinned hothead, recalling how Gotti once stabbed a friend who made fun of him after Gotti went to the bathroom to vomit during a shot-drinking game.

On another occasion, after an associate joked about the small handgun Gotti carried, Alite said, Gotti grabbed a rifle, asked the man, "Is this big enough?", and then shot him in the hip.

Alite became a cooperating witness last year after pleading guilty to racketeering in Tampa, Fla. He admitted involvement in two murders, four murder conspiracies, and eight shootings.

From the witness stand, he has tied Gotti Jr. to several of those acts of violence and to extortion and drug-dealing.

What Alite has said about the Gotti-Casasanto relationship has nothing to do with the racketeering charges Gotti faces, but it supports the broader allegation that Gotti remained boss of the Gambino family while in prison in the late 1990s. Gotti has said that he ended all involvement with the mob during that prison stint.

Alite said Gotti "set up appointments for me with the bosses in Philly," including Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino and Ralph Natale in 1995.

Alite said he met with Casasanto several times after Casasanto came home from prison in 2002.

Casasanto had returned to his home in South Philadelphia. Alite, formerly of the Howard Beach section of New York's Queens borough, was living on Brick Road in Cherry Hill.

The house is now empty and in need of repair. A rain gutter hangs across the garage door. The wooden gate in the backyard has come off its hinges, and the lawn is overgrown and unattended.

A neighbor, Cecelia Blackman, said Alite's ex-wife and the couple's two teenage children moved about two years ago and the house had been vacant since.

Alite lived there before moving to Florida six years ago, she said.

Alite came to Cherry Hill after serving time with Casasanto at a federal prison in Allenwood, Pa., in the mid-1990s. Later Casasanto was transferred to a federal detention center in Ray Brook, N.Y., where he met Gotti.

Alite said Gotti frequently sent messages from prison through Casasanto's brother, Steven, who would visit Gotti and Casasanto there.

Testifying at the Gotti trial this month, Alite said that after Casasanto was released from prison, he looked to him for an introduction to mob life in New York.

According to Casasanto, Gotti wanted Alite to bring him to New York "to introduce him to a couple of guys . . . to get him straightened out," Alite testified. Alite said he confirmed that was true through other Gambino family associates who had heard from Gotti Jr.

But Alite said he did not bring Casasanto to New York.

"I met with him after that and I said, 'Johnny, you'll get killed in New York. Every corner there's guys, not like in Philly where there's only one crew. And they fight each other all the time.'

"He was a wild kid . . . and he didn't understand the life, not New York gangster life. He might have understood the mob life in Philly. It's a big difference."

How well Casasanto understood anything about mob life is open to question.

According to those investigating his death, he was killed by people he trusted. Authorities believe he let two associates into his rowhouse on Durfor Street around 2 a.m. on Nov. 22, 2003. Minutes later he was shot in the back of the head.

During a debriefing with the FBI in August, Alite provided additional details about his dealings with Philadelphia mob figures.

He said he met with Natale and Merlino in the late 1990s before they were jailed. Later, he said, he met with Ligambi and two individuals he identified only as "Anthony" and "Mousey."

Anthony is believed to be Anthony Staino, Ligambi's closest underworld associate and the reputed street boss for the mob in South Jersey.

Mousey is Joseph Massimino, the crime family's reputed underboss. Massimino was released from a New Jersey state prison on Oct. 15 after serving five years on a racketeering-gambling conviction.

Alite said the meetings with Ligambi took place in Haddon Township, in the law office of M.W. "Mike" Pinsky, who represents Ligambi and once represented Alite.

Ligambi and his associates, Alite said, asked several questions about Casasanto, "including questions about [his] behavior in prison."

Alite said he and other inmates suspected Casasanto was a jailhouse informant during a heroin-trafficking investigation inside Allenwood.

Casasanto, who was sentenced to 97 months on a racketeering charge in 1994, was a mob outsider when he came home in 2002. He had sided with crime boss John Stanfa in the mid-1990s during a bloody war with the faction of the mob that Ligambi reputedly now heads.

Considered something of a hothead, he returned to South Philadelphia where, as always, he lived life on his own terms.

He was involved in several bar fights and a stabbing, and, according to law enforcement sources, was suspected of dealing drugs and shaking down local bar and restaurant owners.

A well-known ladies' man, his relationships with the girlfriends or wives of other mobsters created friction within the underworld and added another potential motive for his death, authorities have said.