John Gotti's Love Child

MARCH 2--For the last week, the New York tabloids have been preoccupied with the question of whether the late gangster John Gotti fathered an out-of-wedlock daughter with a Staten Island goumada.

The late Gambino crime family boss' wife Victoria, of course, has denied this, as has Shannon Connelly, the hoodlum's alleged girl on the side. However, in a January 1998 jailhouse chat with his brother Peter, then a mob captain, Gotti clearly spoke about the "precious" love child and the young girl's mother.

In the conversation, videotaped by prison officials at Illinois's Marion federal penitentiary, Gotti mentions "Rosemary," a clear reference to Connelly's mother, the longtime paramour of his Mafia mentor, the late underboss Aniello "Neil" Dellacroce.

[Click below to watch the 2:28 video clip, which was obtained by Jerry Capeci, who broke the story on Gang Land, the online Mafia superstore.]

He then moves on to Rosemary's daughter, the mother of Gotti's illegitmate child, and notes that she "annoys me with these fucking letters and cards. She thinks that we're like boyfriend and girlfriend again, you know what I mean?" He then directs his brother to tell the woman that, "I ain't got time for that," but adds, referring to himself, "he knows his obligations, he tries to meet his obligations, and all that. In his heart he feels what he's supposed to feel in his heart. But this is not a fucking circus, it's not a game."

Then, after a customary dig at his "motherfucker" wife, Gotti and his brother discuss the love child, whose name (or that of her mother) he does not use. "Cute kid, eh? Good kid," Gotti says. He then asks his brother, "She looked like I told you?" Peter responds, "I thought she was my daughter."

Gotti, who had been imprisoned since 1990, then mentions, "I ain't seen her in over seven years," adding, "she was a precious little kid." Then, ever the gentleman, the serial killer denigrates the child's mother as a "pee-pee brain."

We've prepared a transcript of the Gotti-Gotti conversation, which you can find at left. (1 page)