As the feds in New York try to bring John Gotti’s battered crime family to its knees, their counterparts in Los Angeles have dragged the Dapper Don into the sewer, saying he hired a racist prison gang to kill a black inmate who punched him out.

The alleged revenge plot by the murderous Aryan Brotherhood (AB) failed, but today, many law enforcement officials around the country and the family of a slain Washington D.C. cop wish that it had succeeded.

In July 1996, after fellow inmate Walter Johnson punched him bloody, Gotti solicited the white supremacist prison gang to kill his assailant, L.A. prosecutors charged last week in a racketeering and murder indictment against 40 AB members and associates. AB members – many sport the tattoo at left  – tracked Gotti’s 28-year-old attacker, a Philadelphia bank robber serving a 10-year stretch, from Marion Federal Penitentiary to the SuperMax facility in Florence, Colorado. But Johnson managed to evade them and was released from federal prison last year.

Less than a month later, Gang Land has learned, Johnson killed police officer Marlon Morales as he investigated a fare beat at the U Street-Cardoza Metro stop in the nation’s capital, according to court records.

Johnson, who had been convicted of bank robbery and sentenced to 10 years in 1992 – the same year Gotti got life for racketeering and murder – was transferred to Marion in 1995 as an incorrigible inmate in need of discipline.

On July 17, 1996, according to sources, Gotti hurled racial slurs at Johnson when

he failed to get out of Gotti’s way quickly enough as he strutted towards him in an indoor recreation area. 

"Get the fuck out of my way, you piece of shit. Don't you know who I am?" Gotti said, according to prison sources.

Johnson knew who he was, and moved just enough to let him pass. The next day, though, as they neared each other, Johnson smiled and sucker punched Gotti – he went down in a heap – and pummeled him until guards broke it up, according to prison sources.

In this Bureau of Prisons photo taken about half an hour later, Gotti has a trickle of blood by his nose and a bigger splotch on his forehead. With his eyes opened wide and his lips tightly clenched, he looks furious.

Within days, according to a 10 count racketeering and murder indictment, Gotti told Marion AB leaders Michael McElhiney and David Sahakian that he would pay handsomely to have Johnson whacked.

Law enforcement sources said Gotti had an “on again, off again” protection

relationship with the AB at Marion, which was in the “off mode” at the time of his confrontation with Johnson.

During July and August, McElhiney, a member of the AB’s three man Federal Council, instructed two AB associates to “murder Johnson if given the opportunity because Gotti would pay to have Johnson murdered,” the indictment said.

A few months later, when Johnson was moved to SuperMax, McElhiney and Sahakian sent a message about Gotti’s offer to the AB leader there, Barry Mills, who sent word out to gang members at the Colorado prison that “Johnson was to be murdered at all costs.”

For the next five years however, the gang couldn’t get close enough to Johnson to kill him, and he was released on May 15, 2001, after completing his sentence.

On June 10, 2001, as rookie police officer Morales, a 32-year-old father of three, confronted Johnson for a fare beat, the ex-con allegedly overpowered him, took his gun and shot him the face. He died two days later.

On June 14, Johnson, now 34, was arrested on weapons charges after police in Philadelphia stopped him for driving with an expired inspection sticker and recovered Morales’ service revolver from him during a struggle, police said. He

was indicted for murder earlier this year. He is set for trial in January. He faces life if convicted.

Los Angeles assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Jessner, who initially told Gang Land that Johnson was still serving his prison term, confirmed later that Johnson had been released, but otherwise declined to discuss him.

Lawyer Bruce Cutler said Gotti, who died in June at age 61, would have never used racial epithets during a prison brawl. He insisted that the idea that his longtime client and friend would have ever sought out the AB, or anyone else, for help in any dispute “is preposterous.”

“For John to ask someone to fight his battles is an anathema,” said Cutler. “It was just not part of him. But his name still sells newspapers, it still adds a cachet, even in two pages of a 110 page indictment.”

He said the brief mention of Gotti in the case smelled like a “government ploy to keep his brother Peter (right) in isolation” as he awaits trial for racketeering.

“It’s part of a ploy to keep all of the Gotti men locked down,” he added, noting that Gotti’s brother Gene and his son Junior are also in solitary confinement today as the feds investigate an alleged mob plot to kill the warden where John Gotti was housed when he died.

When you’re Peter Gotti and you spend almost 24 hours a day locked down in administrative detention, standing up in court for half an hour or so can be a good thing.

That became clear the other day as the Gambino boss ended a brief Q. & A. session with Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block and asked to stand near the bench rather than sit down and relax as his codefendants went through the same drill.

“It’s nice up here. It’s something different,” smiled Gotti, thanking Block profusely for the opportunity to stretch his legs as brother Richard (above) and capo Anthony (Sonny) Ciccone (left) waived possible conflicts of interests that their lawyers may have by representing them at their trial in January.

Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti

Hot off the presses! It's here, the book it took yours truly and Gene Mustain 17 years to do! Although we didn't know it at the time, we began working on Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti in 1985, when we began covering the Gotti story as news reporters.

The first edition came out in 1988, and we finished this new edition three days before Gotti died in June. Alpha Books has distributed it to the nation's bookstores.

With a 40,000-word update, the new edition contains the entire Gotti saga – from his treacherous rise to his defiant downfall and right on up to his time in prison and his death from throat cancer.

The 378 page, full-size book uses eight additional chapters, a prologue and an epilogue to complete the story we began telling (better than any other reporters, we might add!) when we covered the Gotti-orchestrated, midtown Manhattan assassination of former Gambino boss Paul Castellano.

For the last and best words on Gotti, this is the book to have. It is specially priced at Amazon.com at $11.87, more than five bucks off the suggested retail price.

    Not Really For Idiots

Whether you're a Gang Land regular or an occasional visitor, you'll enjoy  "The Complete Idiot's Guide to The Mafia," a book I wrote for Alpha Books that was published in December. It's filled with real stuff about real wiseguys and insight about the ways that mobsters make their money. It's 343 pages of true stories of life and death, honor and betrayal. Get it at your local book store, or at Gang Land's favorite, Amazon.com, where the powers that be have knocked the price down to $13.27, so low I am concerned that the Godfather of online booksellers has forgotten about my end.