Published Jan. 27, 2015
TAMPA — The book starts off with him naked and defensive in a dingy jail cell in Brazil, pulling a rag-wrapped knife from a body cavity to shred a malevolent trustee named Bomba.
That was a decade ago.
Now, John Alite wants to talk to children about bullying.
The ex-mobster-turned-motivational speaker, whose Tampa ties and New York crime family links drew the bay area into a 2004 racketeering case, figures that a need for male camaraderie led him astray in his youth.
"I should have joined a bowling team," Alite said last week.
A new book, Gotti's Rules, tells of Alite's rise to the role of a street boss as the late John J. Gotti was taking over the Gambino organization in a bloody coup.
Alite, now 52, lays claim to a role in dozens of shootings and several deaths before his years as an international fugitive and, ultimately, a federal informer.
Free since 2012, he has launched a website — johnalite.com — and offers himself as a speaker, seeking to cash in on an activity that has already proved fruitful for him: talking.
"John offers all ages and groups a forceful message and precise tutorial on simply, how not to be a victim," the site states.
Since his 2006 extradition from Brazil to face federal charges in Tampa, Alite has had much to say to investigators and jurors. His cooperation led Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Trezevant to seek a reduction that sprang Alite from a 10-year prison term 20 months early.
He also shared his life story with author and mob expert George Anastasia, a former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter whose book, published by HarperCollins, goes on sale today.
Alite was paid $8,625 for time spent on the book project, about $20 an hour, but won't share in proceeds because of Son of Sam laws, Anastasia said. Alite said he makes a living overseeing home renovations in the New York-New Jersey area, where he lives.
Gotti's Rules is subtitled, The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti and the Demise of the American Mafia — not to be confused with Shadow of My Father, a self-published e-book by John A. "Junior" Gotti released last week.
There are passing references to Tampa in Gotti's Rules. On one page, Alite, who owned bars in the bay area, complained that former Buccaneers wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson never tipped.
Alite came here at 17 on a baseball scholarship to the University of Tampa but fell to injury.
He kept coming back, eventually buying businesses.
In an interview, he said he likes Florida's west coast because it's more laid back than New York and New Jersey. He went to Disney World before Christmas.
Anastasia said Alite's stories checked out, at least the parts that could be researched. He can't know what went on in a Brazilian prison.
He said the book deconstructs the myth of the Gottis and the American Mafia.
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Explore all your options"It's not about royalty and a sense of honor," he said. "It's about men, greed and power."
Alite calls the mob-era version of himself "garbage" and spreads that term around to a few others.
He pleaded guilty in 2008 to a leadership role in a racketeering conspiracy and to participation in two murders.
Alite admitted to setting in motion the hit of a longtime foe.
"I feel guilty for almost all these things I did," he said, "except John Gebert. I'd like to wake him up and kill him again. Unfortunately, I'm not past it."
He sees a therapist one to three times a week, he said.
"I'm a human being," he said. "I'm not ashamed to tell my faults and be real. Hopefully, I will help some kids, whether it's one or a hundred. It helps me to live with myself and my past."
He has four grown children who range from 18 to 25.
He nearly pulled the plug on the book last fall, he said, after someone threatened his son.
"I started getting nervous that I miscalculated," he said. "In our world, you don't go near kids."
This wasn't Alite's first time talking to the Times. He did a 2006 interview from Brazil over a smuggled cellphone and claimed he wasn't a violent man.
In the book, he admits he wasn't truthful in that interview.
Has he turned over a new leaf? Time will tell, Anastasia said. For now, Alite said, he goes bowling.
Contact Patty Ryan at pryan@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3382.
