In his secret session with the feds last year, John (Junior) Gotti told the government a Bronx Tale – a devastating one about politicians and bribes, Gang Land has learned. 

According to law enforcement sources, Gotti (right) said that in the late 1980s, he dished out $200,000 in payoffs to several New York politicians and public officials – including former mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer – for a variety of favors in a failed scheme to pull off a massive $20 million land deal in the South Bronx. Ferrer denies the charge.

Gotti’s sit-down with the feds was an attempt to thwart pending racketeering charges that he since has beaten, courtesy of three straight hung juries. But in January 2005, he was facing decades in prison and the onetime Gambino family leader told the government about some old crimes and well-known names, according to the sources.

Using a business partner as his front man, Gotti said he funneled at least $50,000 in payoffs to Ferrer, then the Bronx Borough President. The sources said Gotti claimed he was present for one meeting with the former Bronx Beep, but said he used the alias of “John Russo” when he was introduced to Ferrer at his partner’s Bronx office. 

During that same time frame, the sources said, the Junior Don claims that Efrain Gonzalez, who was first elected to the State Senate on Nov. 7, 1989, took a $20,000 payoff that Gotti had delivered to him by a Westchester-based Gambino capo, Joseph (Joe Z.) Zingaro.

Gotti also told the feds, sources said, that he shelled out an additional $125,000 to “grease the skids” with other politicians through Davidoff & Malito, a politically

connected law firm headed by lobbyist Sid Davidoff, who represented Gotti’s up-front business partner, David Norkin.

The stunning allegations were emphatically denied by Ferrer, (left) Davidoff, and Gonzalez, who was indicted on unrelated mail fraud charges two months ago.

The way Gotti told the story, the bribes were paid in connection with the September 1988 purchase for $3.2 million of a 28-acre South Bronx rail yard on the East River known as Oak Point by Norkin’s company, Britestarr Homes. Gotti said he and Norkin initially wanted to develop the site, but later planned to sell it for $20 million to the city, which had budgeted that amount to buy the site for a proposed $276 million, 1000-bed city jail.

According to court records, the site became a huge, illegal dump, and the scheme unraveled when it became known that mob associate Michael McLaughlin, a longtime Gotti pal, was a Britestarr vice president. Norkin later pleaded guilty to bankruptcy fraud and unrelated bribery conspiracy charges, and in 2002, Britestarr, which owed $17 million in fines and cleanup costs, and $10 million in back taxes, filed for bankruptcy.

Junior was linked to the Oak Point venture 15 years ago, when New York Newsday reported McLaughlin’s association with Britestarr and that Gotti-owned trucks were dumping construction debris and other garbage at the site. But Gotti’s confession last year was the first mention that anyone was bribed in connection with the scheme.

Gotti leveled the bribe accusations on January 18, 2005, during a meeting with federal prosecutors and an FBI agent. At the time, Ferrer was much in the news

and in the midst of launching his successful bid to become the Democratic Party candidate in last year’s Mayoral election, months before his decisive defeat in November by Mayor Bloomberg.

“It’s all nonsense,” an angry Ferrer said about the allegations involving him, adding that the feds never quizzed, or told him of the allegations.

“I took over from a guy who went to jail,” said Ferrer, referring to his predecessor as Borough President, Stanley Simon. “If there’s anything that I value it’s my reputation. I don’t think I have ever met him in my life. I think I would remember that. Second, neither Norkin nor no other human being on this planet ever gave me anything.”

Ferrer acknowledged meeting with Norkin in 1988 when the Bronx pol, along with many others, supported Norkin’s stated intention to build a massive modular home factory.  The plan was widely embraced as a way to revitalize the ailing borough, said Ferrer, who was Borough President from 1987 through 2001.

“On the rubble of the past, we’re going to be building the new Bronx,” he said back then.

“He kept on promising that he would do it,” recalled Ferrer, “but we soon began to see that this guy was full of baloney. Then I hear he’s in trouble with the Justice Department. That’s the last I heard of Norkin. Given what is going on now, even

someone (like Gotti) just making a charge like this is creepy. I just hate that. I hate it,” he said.

Gonzalez (left) denied the allegations through his attorney, Murray Richman.

“He never met John Gotti Junior; he never met John Russo; he never met Joe Zingaro; he never took money from any of them,” said Richman, adding that not only were the allegations false, they made no sense. “Mr. Gonzalez was not in any position to influence city permits at that time, or at any subsequent time. He was elected to the State Senate on November 7, 1989. Before that he was an armed guard for a security company.” 

Davidoff, who represented Norkin, told Gang Land he helped secure permits that enabled Norkin to operate a clean landfill at Oak Point to make the site suitable for construction. “That was the only thing that I worked on,” said Davidoff, who reportedly had six of his firm’s lawyers working to obtain a recycling permit for Norkin. “We handled that stuff before the Department of Sanitation, but there wasn’t any spreading of money around.”

Gotti has insisted that his proffer session with the feds was intended to convince the government that he had quit the mob – not to become a cooperating witness. He has said that he left when he realized that’s what the feds wanted. But before he walked out, the son of the legendary Dapper Don provided quite a few details.

Junior said he supplied the cash for the bribes, but that others delivered them. On at least two occasions, Gotti told the government, he had McLaughlin deliver $25,000 in cash to Norkin, who allegedly passed it on to Ferrer each time. Gotti added that Norkin, a longtime Bronx contractor and onetime master plumber, suggested paying off the Borough President, according to law enforcement sources. 

Again using the “John Russo” alias, Gotti told the feds he met Gonzalez at a fundraiser at Alex and Henry’s Catering Hall in The Bronx, the sources said. But,

Zingaro, who “was close” to Gonzalez, Gotti said, delivered the payoff, and reported back that Gonzalez had accepted the cash, the sources said.

Within three months after the purchase by Britestarr, Norton and McLaughlin (right) had the necessary permits to operate a recycling center, under a new firm, Oak Point Associates, in which they were partners. Instead, they ran it as a dump. The site was closed down in August of 1989. The company was sued by the State Department of Environmental Conservation, and ultimately fined $50,000 in 1995.

Once Gotti’s connections to the property surfaced, and the city’s Department of Investigation began investigating the matter, he told the feds, his business associates no longer wanted to be involved and the project died.

At the proffer session, sources said, Gotti also dished some dirt on some other mob matters. Like the Britestarr Homes allegations, most involved crimes that are either too old to be prosecuted, or concern wiseguys who are either dead or informants.

For example, Gotti told the feds that the Gambino family used to have influence with former Queens District Attorney John Santucci through soldier Anthony (Tony Lee) Guerrieri and mob associate Sal Reale, (left) but that ended when Guerrieri died and Reale was exposed as an informer.

Meanwhile, as Gotti decides what to do now that there are no racketeering charges against him and he’s out of the mob, Norkin, now 75, has completed probation and 500 hours of community service and is suing a law firm that represented him during the early stages of the bankruptcy proceeding for $10 million. And the city is planning to clean up the site and build a $375 million, 2000-bed prison at Oak Point.