Text size:

Missourians Show Support For John Gotti With Gifts

By Anthony M. DeStefano | Staff Writer

August 14, 2001

Baskets of cookies and containers of pasta sauce are some of the offerings folks in Springfield, Mo., are sending to cancer-stricken mob boss John Gotti in a local hospital, a family friend said yesterday.

"The outpouring of support is so mindboggling," said Lewis Kasman, Gotti's self-described adopted son and family spokesman. "It is nice."

Kasman traveled to Springfield to see Gotti but said he was turned away Sunday and yesterday by staff of the St. John's Regional Health Center. Gotti's wife, daughter Victoria and son Peter have been able to see him, said Kasman.

Gotti, 60, was taken to the medical center last week from a federal facility amid reports he was gravely ill from the effects of head, neck and throat cancer. Kasman said Gotti was admitted with a mild to moderate heart arrhythmia and other problems related to his cancer. But with the regimen of drugs he is now getting at the medical center, Gotti was "doing a little bit better" and the arrhythmia had disappeared, Kasman said in a phone interview.

Kasman said the offerings of cookies and sauce were also being turned away by the hospital, but that he had collected nearly a dozen baskets of baked goods that had been destined for Gotti in his Springfield hotel room.

"People from all walks of life" have sent over the gifts, which has "touched John's wife and daughter," said Kasman.

A staffer at the hospital's office of community affairs said St. John's referred inquiries to the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, where Gotti had been staying for the past two years. Another staffer at the hospital said she had not heard about any gifts. The U.S. Medical Center did not return calls.

Gotti, serving a life sentence for his 1992 racketeering conviction, was diagnosed with cancer in 1998. While he was transferred to the federal medical center for treatment, family and friends say that he should be in a major civilian-run facility.