By Samuel Newhouse
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BROOKLYN — After jury selections last week, opening statements are scheduled to take place today in the racketeering trial of John Gotti Jr. in Manhattan federal court.

Gotti Jr. will be facing the government’s star witness — his ex-best friend, John Alite, a former drug dealer and hitman who is testifying as part of a plea agreement. But Gotti Jr.’s not the only one afraid of what’s coming out of Alite’s mouth.

Alite, 46, has named 11 NYPD cops who he claims were taking money from the mob, according to an FBI report. One of them was Bo Dietl, a retired NYPD detective who became successful as a private investigator working for international corporations. Another was the driver for Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

Dietl angrily denied the charges to the New York Post, calling Alite a “f—-ing liar.� The 1998 film “One Tough Cop� was based off of Dietl’s memoir.

While testifying against Gambino hitman Charles Carneglia, Alite testified that corrupt cops backed him up during the drive-by shooting of a drug dealer. He also that he had an affair with then-married Victoria Gotti.

Victoria Gotti of “Growing Up Gotti� also denied Alite’s story about her, saying, “He’s an insect.�

Before receiving a life sentence from U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein last week, Carneglia angrily said, “Liar upon liar testified against me. … They had a deal with the government.�

But deal or no, Alite’s testimony is turning heads.

According to the FBI report, Alite also said that Joe Coffey, a well-known police officer who personally arrested John Gotti Sr. three times, gave sensitive information to a corrupt cop.

Alite has already pled guilty to racketeering and admitted his involvement in various felonies. He controlled drug-trafficking and prostitution in dozens of Queens neighborhoods for nearly a decade until 1993.

Alite told jurors in the Carneglia trial that he grew up in the Queens borough wanting to be a mobster, and earned Gotti Jr.’s respect in the 1980s by cutting him in on his cocaine profits, even though drugs were considered taboo in the family.

Gotti Jr. was best man at Alite’s wedding, in fact.

But Alite said that because he was Albanian, not Italian, he could never become a made member of the family.

When Alite was caught with a gun in 1995, he was thrown in jail for three years because he already had an assault conviction. Then Alite got three more months for trying to smuggle mobster Antonio Parlavecchio’s sperm out of prison so that he could impregnate his wife.

Then, in 2004 Alite was charged with running a Gambino family crew in Tampa, Florida, that was involved with robbery, murder, gambling and kidnapping. The organization was reportedly concealed with a parking valet company.

After the organization was uncovered, Alite fled to Brazil for three year before being extradited. That’s when he became a witness.

Gotti Jr. is accused of involvement in three murders in the late 1980s and early 1990s and of possessing and trafficking more than five kilograms of cocaine. His previous three trials have ended in mistrial.

At the Carneglia trial, Alite said that Gotti Jr. planned the World Trade Center parking lot hit on Louis DiBono.

Alite also implicated Gotti in the other two killings prosecutors have charged he was involved in — the slayings of two men in Queens amid drug turf disputes in 1988 and 1991. Alite said they were carried out on Gotti’s say-so.

John “Dapper Don� Gotti was sentenced to life in prison in 1992. He died while incarcerated in 2002. The Associated Press contributed to this story

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