John Alite

John Edward Alite (born September 30, 1962) is an American former mobster and Gambino crime family associate, who turned government witness and in 2008, testified against the crime family and its former acting boss, John A. "Junior" Gotti. That year, Alite pleaded guilty to racketeering charges, including two murders and a variety of other crimes, and, in 2011, was sentenced to a total of 10 years in prison. Due to his cooperation with prosecutors, he was released on a five-year supervised release in 2012. Later in life, Alite publicly denounced organized crime and became a motivational speaker, podcaster, and author. In March 2025, he was appointed a councilman in Englishtown, New Jersey, as a member of the Republican Party.

Early life The son of a cab driver and a secretary, Alite was born on September 30, 1962, in the Queens borough of New York City and grew up in Woodhaven, Queens. Alite grew up in the same neighborhood as John Gotti's son, John A. Gotti, with whom he was boyhood friends. In mid-1984, Gotti recruited Alite to partake in a drive-by shooting on a gang of Jamaican marijuana dealers who had robbed John Gebert, Gotti's partner in a marijuana distribution racket. Alite successfully performed as a driver while Gebert shot two Jamaican gangsters from a car in Jamaica, Queens, elevating his standing in the Gambino family. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was an enforcer and "hit man" for a Queens-based drug gang headed by Gotti which allegedly distributed eight kilograms of cocaine per month.

On December 20, 1988, Alite lured cocaine dealer George Grosso to the White Horse Tavern in Queens, persuaded him to get into a car under the pretense of driving to another bar, and then shot him three times in the head. Grosso's corpse was dumped off of the Grand Central Parkway in Flushing Meadows Park. "Junior" Gotti allegedly ordered Grosso's murder because Grosso had told people he was selling drugs on behalf of Gotti and his father, Gambino boss John Joseph Gotti.

Alite was charged with assault along with John A. Gotti and Steven Kaplan following an alleged brawl at a nightclub in Island Park, Long Island on June 11, 1989. However, a grand jury declined to indict the trio.

Shortly after he was promoted to caporegime in 1990, John A. Gotti assigned Alite to a hit team who were ordered to kill Gambino soldier Louie DiBono, who was marked for death after refusing an order from John J. Gotti. Alite was dispatched to Atlantic City to search for DiBono but failed to locate the mobster, who was ultimately killed by Charles Carneglia in an underground parking lot at the World Trade Center later that year.

Alite was also involved in the murder of Bruce John Gotterup, who was shot to death on a Rockaway boardwalk by John Burke on November 20, 1991 as retribution for stealing drug and gambling proceeds from Gambino family associates, as well as for being involved in an altercation with the nephew of a Gambino soldier.

In the mid-1990s, Alite relocated to the Philadelphia area, where he owned homes in the suburbs of Cherry Hill and Voorhees Township. He began associating with made members and associates of the Philadelphia crime family, as well as the independent 10th & Oregon Crew. Infighting in the Philadelphia Mafia between rival factions led by John Stanfa and Joey Merlino left the organization in disarray and allowed Alite to take control of the lucrative valet parking business on Delaware Avenue, as well as in South Jersey and Atlantic City, within a year of moving to the area.

Alite later led a crew in Tampa, Florida that extorted rival valet businesses, and reported to Gambino capo Ronald "Ronnie One-Arm" Trucchio. He also arranged for the purchase of Mirage, a Tampa nightclub.

In 1995, Charles Carneglia and Alite were involved in a major conspiracy to murder John A. Gotti. Later that year, Alite was arrested for illegal possession of a firearm in violation of a parole agreement and spent three years in prison. After his release, Alite earned an additional three months back in prison for acting as a go-between for corrupt prison guard Troy Kemmerer who was smuggling sperm donation kits in and out of Allenwood Federal Prison for inmate Antonino Parlavecchio, who was trying to impregnate his wife Maria.

As federal racketeering indictments were handed down for his group's activities in the Tampa area, Alite fled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in January 2004, where he lived and worked in the Copacabana neighborhood, according to the Brazilian Federal Police. He lived there for 10 months before authorities arrested him in November 2004. He served two years in prison in Brazil and was eventually extradited to federal authorities in Tampa for trial in 2006.

Alite has estimated that he shot between 30 and 40 people, beat about 100 people with a baseball bat, and murdered 7 people. Alite agreed to testify in the trial of Gambino family enforcer Charles Carneglia, who was found guilty of four murders and is now serving a life sentence.

Alite was also a government witness in the unsuccessful racketeering trial against John Gotti Jr. Prosecutors indicted Gotti for racketeering and murder conspiracy charges, stemming from an alleged drug trafficking ring in Florida, and the murders of George Grosso in 1988, Louis DiBono in 1990, and Bruce John Gotterup in 1991. Alite testified that Gotti was responsible for at least eight murders, among other crimes.

Alite's testimony was largely undermined during cross examination. On December 1, 2009, the 12 jurors announced that they had failed to reach a unanimous verdict on all the charges against Gotti and the judge declared a mistrial and released Gotti. Interviewed after the trial, the jurors said that they did not find Alite to be credible.

On April 26, 2011, Alite was sentenced to a total of 10 years in prison.

Later life Alite later became a youth motivational speaker on avoiding crime. He co-wrote four books, Gotti's Rules (2015), Darkest Hour (2018), Prison Rules (2019), and Mafia International (2021). In March 2015, he appeared in The Mafia with Trevor McDonald. In July 2020, he appeared in the Netflix docuseries Fear City: New York vs the Mafia. On March 25, 2020, he started his own podcast, Mafia Truths with John Alite. In September 2021, Alite was the subject of an episode of National Geographic's Locked Up Abroad.

In 2025, Alite, by then a resident of Englishtown, New Jersey, was appointed to fill a vacant seat on the borough's council. He is a Republican.

On Friday June 19, 2026, Alite was arrested. The New Jersey Attorney General charged Alite with corporate misconduct, extortion, and other crimes.