TO the outside world, Andrea Giovino looked like any other Staten Island housewife as she pruned her beloved rose bushes outside her New York mansion.
But little did her well-to-do neighbours know that Andrea was privy to some of the most explosive secrets of the Gambino crime family – and the charming mum-of-four, who smiled sweetly as they passed, would tell her husband to wipe the blood off his shoes when he got inside. Here, she tells all about her time as a mob wife.
Andrea Giovino was a fomer pal of New York mobster John Gotti[/caption]
The mother enjoyed a luxury lifestyle with expensive cars and a beachside home[/caption]
Brooklyn-born Andrea Giovino, now, 68, had a front row seat to a life of crime.
Her first contact with “the streets”, as she says, was when her mother would host cards and dice gambling games in her basement in Brooklyn, New York when she was a kid.
Her mum’s main guest was Crazy Joe Gallo – an Italian American gangster and a capo (Mafia boss) of New York City’s notorious Colombo family.
Surrounded by criminals, Giovino grew up knowing who not to mess with – and when to keep her mouth shut.
Over the course of her life she dated three huge mob figures.
She married mob capo Frank Lino, 24 years her senior, when she was just 21.
And then she had a fling with Mark Reiter, who locked eyes on her as she sat next to top Gambino family crime lord John Gotti at Club A in Manhattan.
Andrea was a pal of Gotti – who used to say of the fearless moll that she had “more balls” than his mob captains.
Finally, she married “Big John” Fogarty – a 6ft 4in Irish mobster, with whom she would rise from living in a one-bed flat downtown to swanning around a luxury house in Staten Island.
Being raised “on the streets”, Andrea was attracted to the glamorous lifestyle – she ended up having a home furnished with custom Italian furniture, spending $6,000 on rosebushes, and driving a Mercedes 250 convertible.
“It was all very glamorous,” she told The Sun.
But after a twist of fate led the police to her door, she turned her life around and is now a church-going suburban mum-of-four and grandmother now living a regular life in Pennsylvania.
After being arrested and indicted on RICO charges – set up to tackle criminal gangs and Mafias – in September 1992, Giovino explained how being married to the mob wasn’t always glamorous.
She was detained along with 20 men as part of a massive bust to break-up a drug-trafficking ring after more than a decade-and-a-half rubbing shoulders with the New York Mafia.
COPS AT THE DOOR
But the arrest ended up being a ploy by the Feds to put pressure on her husband – Fogarty – and her brother mob enforcer Frank Silvestri, who were wanted for murder and extortion.
Both men ended up giving themselves up and doing time.
After her arrest, she ended up escaping without any charges.
Giovino stressed that she was never in the Mafia herself – but knew the business-of several high-profile mobsters.
She told The Sun Online: “I knew a lot of people because we were all from an area in Brooklyn where a lot of criminals came out of.
“The reason why I got in the streets and how I got arrested is because my husband went to prison and then I had no money, I had no education, but I knew the street life.“
Having broken off her brief marriage with “Curly” Lino – she met infamous Mafia don John Gotti in the mid 80s – the boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City.
Dapper don John Gotti was New York’s most feared crime boss[/caption]
The Rise and Fall of John Gotti
Gotti became the boss of the Gambino family in 1985 after ordering the assassination of his predecessor, Paul Castellano.
Gotti’s flashy demeanor and high-profile lifestyle, along with his ability to evade conviction in multiple trials, earned him notoriety as the most powerful mob boss in America during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
But Gotti’s reign came to an end in 1992 when he was convicted of murder, racketeering, extortion, and other charges.
This conviction was largely due to the testimony of turncoat mobsters, including his former right-hand man, Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano.
Gotti was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and died in 2002 while incarcerated.
Despite his downfall, Gotti remains a legendary figure in the history of organised crime in the United States.
“I met John Gotti in the 80s in a club in Manhattan. Club A. We’d later hang out every Tuesdays and Thursdays,” she said.
“We would many times go to dinner as a group and then go out.
“It was all very glamorous. The earrings, the sparkles, the make-up. The men would wear their $2,000 suits, their Rolex, their pinky ring.”
Giovino and her sister were invited to hang out in the VIP section with John and his associate, Mark Reiter, who later became her partner.
Gotti had sent over a bottle of pricey Dom Perignon Champagne and asked them to join the table, but the bottle was sent back by Giovino as she “knew the kind of people they were”.
But in the end you get sick of the b******t and lies
Andrea Giovino
“We were not best friends, but John liked me. And the reason he liked me is because I wasn’t just somebody’s girlfriend,” Giovino said.
“Yes, I was then dating his friend Mark Reiter, but John also knew he was comfortable to talk to me or talk with other people while I was sitting there because I knew the street code.”
She explained: “I knew the language. I knew you don’t repeat, you don’t talk, you don’t say what you hear, you know your place.”
Gotti and Giovino hit it off from the start, especially after he nicknamed her “Rocky” when holding her back at a bar brawl.
“His words were, ‘She’s got more balls than some of the guys that are around me,’ because I didn’t care, I was very angry,” she revealed.
Giovino said she never saw “the ruthless part” of Gotti as he was always pleasant with her, enjoying his drink, and having fun.
She was one of many in Gotti’s orbit to be featured in Netflix‘s true crime docuseries, Get Gotti.
It explored the life of the notorious American mobster, breaking down his early life, how he rose to power in New York, and how he evaded law enforcement over the years.
In 1992, Gotti was finally caught by US Feds, and was convicted of charges including racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, murder, illegal gambling, obstruction of justice, conspiracies to murder, bribing a detective, committing loan sharking, and tax fraud.
He died of throat cancer in 2002 while serving a life prison sentence without the possibility of parole and a $250,000 fine for his crimes.
MOB CHARMER
Andrea met Fogarty in 1986 – a street smart tough guy – who sometimes worked as an enforcer for the Gambino Family.
She was “swept off her feet” by the mobster – who wowed her with the promise of a luxury life.
It was the kind of life her mother had always told her to seek out, repeatedly telling her to marry a mobster.
After her failed relationship with the much older Lino, now was her second shot – and the two wed, moving to a beachside house in Staten Island.
It was here the mother-of-four enjoyed wallpapers by Oscar de la Renta, drove around in a Mercedes 450 convertible, and spent a whopping £6,000 on rose bushes alone.
They ended up having two children together – Brittany and Keith.
However, she also explained how the lifestyle afforded by the mob always comes with a price
Women enter into a contract, she tells us, to keep quiet and to themselves.
“But in the end you get sick of the bulls**t and lies,” Giovino said.
Being married to the mob wasn’t all glitz and glamour.
In 1992, aged 35, Giovino had been indicted on RICO charges of conspiring to distribute marijuana and cocaine in the Brooklyn and Staten Island area.
“When you’re hit with a RICO, you get life,” she said.
RICO charges are some of the toughest available to US prosecutors and designed to bring down mobs and anyone associated them with one big, all encompassing charge.
Her then-husband, John Fogarty, and her brother, John Silvestri, were wanted – facing charges of murder and extortion.
Giovino now lives a suburban life as a grandmother in Pennsylvania[/caption]
Having got what they wanted – Andrea was allowed to go free and was moved away with her children, her two from her relationship with John, and two from previous relationships – John Jr. and Tob.
Giovino said: “I had to take care of my kids first and foremost, because my husband was incarcerated.”
She described living in fear afterwards – not knowing who to trust, despite having the protection of the police.
“I had to worry about who’s going to rat, and who is not,” said Andrea.
She was often exposed to the violence that came with life in the mob.
Andrea once asked Fogarty to remove his bloodied shoes before coming in after he arrived home for dinner with two bodies in the boot of his Lincoln Continental.
He was so shameless and brazen – she warned him that he thought he was “invincible” and could get away with anything.
She feared he would be caught if he was so careless.
Giovino’s brother became a hitman for the mob at 17, and she even was the one to give the go-ahead for one of his jobs.
He had a street name of “Johnny Bubble Gum” – and operated freelance, working for both the Gambino crime family and the Bonannos.
And the cops used her to get to him.
Giovino pictured with one of her sons[/caption]
Getting emotional, the ex-mob wife vividly recalls the day the DEA knocked on her door just moments before taking her children to school.
“It was September 9, 1992, six in the morning,” she began.
“They [the DEA] never do this. They said this was a courtesy.
“They rang my phone at six in the morning. I picked it up. They said, ‘DEA, open the door. We’re gonna kick it in.’
“They don’t do that. They just kick it in, but they knew there were four kids in the house, so they said that was a courtesy.
“I was sleeping with just a pair of panties and a T-shirt.
“I ran down, I opened the door, but the agents were coming in from front and back, back door, front door, and I just froze.
“They started reading my charges for cocaine, for murder, because I was on RICO so I was bring dragged into other people’s mess.
“The first thing that I thought about were my children, where were my children. But they said I couldn’t move.
“My daughter was a baby in the crib. They went and got the baby out of the crib. She was 15 months old.
“They’re turning the mattress over, the kids were screaming. It was a nightmare.”
Giovino was then rushed out of New York state and relocated to Pennsylvania with her children after FBI wire taps revealed that the mob had a contract out on her life.
Originally the Feds wanted her and her children to completely change their identity, and move to the Mid-West.
But she refused – and remains under her real name, even becoming friends with the police who had arrested her.
Giovino has turned her life around since her indictment.
She decided to do so on the same day of her arrest, whilst waiting for bail.
“I had had it with abuse from men. I had had it from the lifestyle,” she said.
“The bottom line was my children. I didn’t care about these guys [mobsters].
“And that’s why they put a contract out on me and everything.
“Because I didn’t care. I cared about getting the truth out there.”
Giovino signed up with the Parent-Teacher Association, joined the church’s fundraising committee and secured a family pass to the country club.
Talking about her old life, she launched her bestseller Divorced From The Mob in 2004, and now has her own podcast and YouTube channel.
But the grandmother said she receives a lot of backlash from men and former mobsters who accuse her of being a liar.
“They’re just abusive, these ‘macho’ men. I got a lot of backlash for speaking out and having my YouTube channel.
“I always hear, ‘Andrea Giovino is a liar. She didn’t know John Gotti. She wasn’t in the streets.’
“Meanwhile, the facts are the facts. I was arrested on a RICO with 22 men. And those are all facts.
“I was married to these types of personalities,” she continued
“They have this thing where the woman has no place, no voice, ‘go in the kitchen, go mind your business, shut your mouth’.
“And a lot of women put up with that just to be cared for, which I did too. But not anymore.”
Since her indictment in 1992, Giovino launched her own book and now has her own podcast and YouTube channel[/caption]
