Victoria Gotti Dishes Up the Dirt in New Memoir

Victoria concedes her father was head of the Gambino crime family

Mafia princess Victoria Gotti is preparing to release a sensational new tell-all about her mafia family -- and she says the decision to release the book was prompted by her brother John "Junior" Gotti's current racketeering trial.

Victoria Gotti, daughter of the late mob kingpin John Gotti, told CBS's 48 Hours Mystery that she "loved the man....loathed the life." The interview will air Saturday at 10 p.m. and exerpts of the book, "This Family of Mine: What It Was Like Growing Up Gotti," will be published in the New York Post beginning Sunday.
 
The memoir dishes on her parents' abusive childhoods and her father's notorious career in organized crime. She also writes candidly about her traumatizing marriage to a mobster her father warned her against and her father's death in prison, the Post said.

Victoria concedes her father was head of the Gambino crime family, the nation's most powerful mob syndicate. But, when she was asked if he ordered the assassination of his predecessor, Paul Castellano, she said: "Absolutely not."

She also acknowledges that her father may have played a role in the death of a Queens neighbor who accidentally killed her 12-year-old brother, Frank in 1980.

The neighbor, John Favara, was driving near the Gottis' home in Howard Beach when Frank, Gotti's youngest son, darted into the street on a motorized bicycle, and was struck by Favara's car. Police found Favara was not to blame in the accident and no charges were filed.

Victoria admits she asked her father to extract revenge, the Post reports.

"You're supposed to be a tough guy. How can you let somebody kill my brother?" Victoria recalled asking her father. "And he just looked at me and he said, 'It was an accident.' "

Favara met an ominous end.  According the FBI, serveral witnesses saw him be shoved into a van by several men about three months after Frank's death.  Favara's body has never been found.

Victori Gotti says she believes her brother has gotten out of organized crime, as he has maintained in recent years. 

She said her brother went against his father's wishes by pleading guilty in 1999 to racketeering charges as a way to say he wanted out of the mob. Junior was released from prison in 2005.

"Father was dead set against it . . . and he said, 'Tell your brother, I will never tell him how to live his life. Tell him I will support whatever he does," Victoria said.

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