Frank LoCascio, the Dapper Don's former underboss and acting consigliere, passed away Friday after serving 31 years of a life sentence
A Gambino crime family underboss who stayed loyal to John Gotti even as the pair were hit with life sentences during a 1992 murder and racketeering trial has died in prison at age 89.
Frank LoCascio, the Dapper Don's former underboss and acting consigliere, passed away Friday at the Federal Medical Center, Devens - a facility that houses federal prisoners with health issues - in Massachusetts.
His daughter, Lisa LoCascio, was by his side as he took his last breaths.
LoCascio had been incarcerated for 31 years before his death last week after famously refusing to snitch on notorious mob boss Gotti during their infamous and highly publicized trial.
What's more, the high-ranking mafioso managed to cheat death during his three decades in the pen even with Gotti as his enemy, after the Teflon Don turned on him and put a 'contract' on his former right-hand's life after a jailhouse quarrel, prison officials revealed.
'I am guilty of being a good friend of John Gotti,' the defiant underboss famously said in court after refusing to turn on his boss in lieu of a more lenient sentence, and being found guilty of racketeering and ordered to spend the rest of his natural life in prison.
'If there was more men like John Gotti, we would have a better country,' the mobster proudly professed at the time.
Career criminal LoCascio, pictured here on the right, next to boss John Gotti, managed to cheat death during his three decades in the pen even with Gotti as his enemy, after the Teflon Don turned on him and put a 'contract' on his former right-hand's life after a jailhouse quarrel, prison officials revealed
LoCascio and Gotti were cuffed by police in 1991 and charged in a sprawling racketeering case in which they were caught on tape discussing various mob matters - including murder - in the apartment of an old woman who lived above Gotti's Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street in Manhattan.
Gotti and LoCascio's fates were then sealed by Gambino turncoat Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano, who was initially indicted with the pestilent pair, but succumbed to lawmen's pressure and turned on his associates in the weeks leading up to the trial.
Gotti was found guilty of five counts of murder as well as racketeering, while LoCascio was convicted on charges of racketeering, without the possibility of parole.
Gotti eventually died of cancer while incarcerated in 2002 - but not before forming a life-or-death feud with his former comrade.
In his tell-all book released in 1997, Gravano - who briefly did time with Gotti and Locascio after agreeing to testify against the two in a deal which he confessed to involvement in 19 murders, before being released in 1994 - described a 1991 incident in which LoCascio gave Gravano an orange stolen from the prison cafeteria, before offering one to Gotti as well.
Infuriated, the hotheaded mob boss began to belittle LoCascio in front of the other inmates.
Later, Gravano says, a humiliated Locascio tearfully vowed to murder Gotti, stating, 'The minute I get out, I'm killing this [expletive].'
Gravano says that he and Locascio then formed a pact to kill Gotti at a prospective victory party, assuming they were all somehow acquitted.
Gravano detailed his conversation in 'Underboss': 'Frankie [Locascio] said, 'Sammy, two things. I'll bring him to the party myself, and I got to be the shooter.'
According to law enforcement sources and court papers, Gotti, angered after learning of his onetime follower's supposed insurgence through Gravano's book, then reached out to an Aryan Brotherhood prison gang to murder Locascio.
However, at some point, federal prison guards at the prison allegedly caught Gotti complaining about the Locascio passage on security cameras stationed at the facility, a source said.
