Gotti jury signals deadlock

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NEW YORK (AP) -- Jurors deliberating the fate of accused Mob boss John A. "Junior" Gotti indicated they were deadlocked over his claim he had quit organized crime, though the judge urged panelists to keep working.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin asked jurors to continue discussing the case after she received a note from the group indicating it was divided over the question of Gotti's so-called withdrawal defense.

The jury was to resume work Tuesday. Gotti, 41, claims he quit the Gambino organized crime family before July 22, 1999, meaning the five-year statute of limitations would have expired on racketeering charges.

Prosecutors allege Gotti ordered his Gambino crew to give radio personality Curtis Sliwa a severe beating in retaliation for Sliwa's on-air rants against his father, former Gambino family boss John Gotti.

A masked hit-man shot Sliwa, a WABC radio host and the outspoken founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting group, during a struggle in a taxi. Sliwa survived and testified last month against Gotti, as did admitted mobsters who pleaded guilty and cooperated with the government.

The defense told jurors that the younger Gotti had nothing to do with the Sliwa attack and said he retired from the Gambinos following an unrelated racketeering conviction in 1999.

Prosecutors dismissed the claim, saying Gotti used his name to rise in the crime organization and gave orders and collected kickbacks beyond 1999.

Gotti faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison if convicted of multiple racketeering charges. His father was sentenced to life in prison in 1992 and died there 10 years later.