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John Alite (born September 30, 1962) is a New York City mobster. A former member of the Gambino crime family he was a friend and crew leader for John A. Gotti in the 1980s and 1990s. Following extradition from Brazil in 2006, he was convicted in Tampa, Fl of several counts of murder conspiracy, racketeering and other charges stemming from allegedly heading a unit of the Gambino organization in Florida. He is currently awaiting sentencing, having served as a prosecution witness against former associates Charles Caniglia and Gotti in wide-ranging racketeering trials. While a part of the Gambino organization, because his family is Albanian, not Italian, Alite could not become a made member of the organization.

Early Life
Alite grew up in the Woodside section of Queens and says he briefly attended the University of Tampa on a baseball scholarship but left after one semester following an injury. He is divorced with four children, two from an ex-wife Carol and two from another relationship.

Working for Gotti
Alite and Gotti met in their teens and moved quickly into criminal enterprises, according to federal prosecutors. Alite has testified that he and Gotti ran a cocaine trafficking ring in the Forest Hills section of Queens and extracted a tax from other dealers. By the 1990s, Alite says that the ring was earning $1 million a month. On February 14, 1988, Junior Gotti was best man at Alite's wedding in Queens. The date was selected not because it was Valentine's Day, but as a sign of respect for Junior because it was his birthday.

According to Alite, his relationship with Gotti and the Gambino leadership soured in 1994 when he confronted an associate, Carmine Agnello. Alite claims that he had been having an affair with Agnello’s wife Victoria Gotti, and grew angry when he believed that Agnello was beating her. After a reconciliation meeting with Gotti, Alite received the family's permission to move to Tampa, Fl, where he had an interest in a valet business run by a friend, Ronnie "One Arm" Trucchio.

In the mid 1990s, Alite and Truccio became involved in a valet company called A&A of Tampa, which later changed its name to Prestige Valet. Beginning in 1995, Alite headed to Prestige had contracts with St. Joseph's Hospital and the shops in Channelside, according to court documents. The company also parked cars at restaurants and nude clubs. He also was co-owner of Prestige Valet, and authorities said he used his alleged mob ties to threaten in and intimidate others in the Tampa valet business.

In 1995 Alite was arrested for illegal posession of a firearm in violation of a parole agreement and spent three years in prison. In 2000 he served another three months in prison after smuggling sperm collection kits into prison to help a jailed associate impregnate his wife.

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

Government Informant
In January 2008, Alite secretly pled guilty to two murders, four murder conspiracies, at least eight shootings and two attempted shootings as well as armed home invasions and armed robberies in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida. The maximum penalty for the charges is life in prison. Alite agreed to testify in the trial of Gambino family enforcer Charles "Charlie Canig" Carneglia, who was found guilty of four murders and is now serving a life sentence.

After the successful trial against Carneglia, federal prosecutors have made him a prosecution witness in the racketeering trial against Gotti. Prosecutors charge that Gotti ordered the murders of George Grosso and Bruce Gotterup, who prosecutors said were part of the drug ring Gotti was operating in Queens.