The rapist needed to die.
The order had come from above. And John Alite was ready to do his part.
Back then, John Gotti Jr.’s right-hand man was always willing.
The ex-mob enforcer now regrets much of what he did for the Gambino crime family, decades before he became an unlikely councilman in the quaint borough of Englishtown. But he doesn’t regret John Gebert‘s 1996 murder — or his role in it.
“My opinion: He got what he deserved,” Alite told NJ Advance Media, referring to the mob-sponsored killing of Gebert, a rival drug dealer who had been convicted of first-degree rape a decade earlier. “I don’t regret it.
“Honestly? Maybe I’m wrong. God’s gonna judge me. But I don’t regret it.”
Alite is perhaps the only public official in New Jersey with a body count. He admits to at least six murders. Thirty to 40 shootings. And millions earned trafficking drugs.
“It was an unbelievable adrenaline-rush life,” he said one recent sunny morning, lounging in the backyard of his home.
Was it lucrative? Duh. Was it exhilarating? You’re damn right, Alite said.
But there were multiple attempts made on his life. And worse, Alite’s only daughter, Chelsea, died from a fentanyl overdose in 2022 at the age of 30.
“Is it worth your life? Is it worth the depression? Is it worth your family suffering?” he continued, his voice low and gravelly. “I lost my daughter because I was not around for her every day.
“I blame myself.”
His whiplash trajectory from violent New York gangster to cooperating witness to mourning father on a mission garnered national headlines. He became a celebrity again in March when he was appointed to the Englishtown Borough Council, filling a vacancy after four council members abruptly resigned within two months.
But Alite — dressed in a crisp, light blue button-down, tattoos peeking out from his cuffed sleeves, and designer sunglasses — says he accepted the position not for attention but for atonement.
“I’m not here to impress anybody, but (to) change my life,” he said.
Alite, 62, radiates an air of confidence and a complicated mix of contrition and invincibility. He boasts more than 500,000 followers on Instagram and amiably chats with people like he’s been in politics for years.
Twenty years ago, he was a hitman sitting in a grisly Brazilian prison following his arrest on murder and racketeering charges. Today, he’s a sharply dressed and well-liked councilman in a Monmouth County borough of 2,300.
“I’ve followed what has happened to a lot of my former gangsters who turned into cooperators,” said Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York who worked on Alite’s case.
Some have struggled to reintegrate into society, according to Honig, while others have made a smooth transition.
“John is definitely the first one to hold public office,” he said. “I can tell you that for sure.”
Alite told me about his future aspirations (the first former hitman in Congress?) and what people don’t get about the mob. He also riffed on the absurd local politics in Englishtown and poured out his regrets.
Over his daughter’s tragic death. Over the emotional scars a life of violence has left behind. And over the families of his victims — most of them anyway.
Although he now attends Mass as a devout Catholic and hopes to be absolved by God and the families of the people he’s hurt, Alite isn’t sorry for everything.
Like the murder of Gebert.
John Burke, a longtime associate in the Gambino family, was sentenced to life without parole in 2013 for Gebert‘s murder and other crimes. But he wasn’t the shooter, Alite said. Instead, it was Pasquale Andriano, Alite’s cousin, known as Patsy, he said. (Andriano served five years in prison.)
“I accept all the bad,” said Alite, a divorced father of four surviving children. “Believe me, I’m ashamed of it.”
But he doesn’t see himself as irredeemable.
“Because no politician — anybody — doesn’t have the experience I have to be able to understand the things that I understand from the street,” he said.
The mob life
Alite was born to be a gangster.
He grew up in poverty in Woodhaven, Queens, in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, when mobsters were ubiquitous, he says. His father was good friends with the cousin of Charles “Lucky” Luciano, the archetype for all the mob bosses who followed.
His father’s barber was a bookmaker. His baseball coach, Albert Ruggiano, was the son of Gambino captain Anthony Ruggiano Sr. Even Alite’s girlfriend when he was 10 or 11 years old had ties to organized crime — both her father and uncle were gangsters.
“This was all I knew,” Alite said. “And everywhere I went, it was accepted.”
He then met John Gotti Sr. — the Gambino boss in the mid-to-late 1980s, notoriously known as the “Teflon Don.” Soon, he was involved in the family’s illicit activities, according to a 2019 GQ profile. Alite became John Gotti Jr.’s best friend, “right-hand man and primary enforcer,” prosecutors later said.
Moving up in the mob world isn’t so different from progressing in any industry, according to Alite. You start out nervous and unsure of yourself. But as you continue, you build confidence.
“You want to be the best in your field,” he said, “and even though it‘s the wrong field, you still want to be the best at it.”
And by most metrics, Alite became pretty successful.
Although his Albanian heritage prevented him from becoming a made man in the Gambino family, he still aided in multiple murders and the drug trade.
Alite made $1 million a year trafficking narcotics for the mob over a 10-year period in the 1980s and ’90s, he testified in 2009. (“I made more than that probably,” he told NJ Advance Media.) He went as far as to declare in his testimony that he “wasn’t a good guy.”
He owned several businesses, ticking them off: five nightclubs, two glass shops, a supermarket, a national valet parking business, a candy shop.
“I wasn’t just a dumb gangster,” he said. “I was very business-oriented.”
But it all unraveled seemingly overnight.
By 2003, he was on the run, fleeing from an impending indictment. Alite heard Junior Gotti was working as an informant and several others had already flipped, according to the GQ profile.
He was arrested in Brazil on murder and racketeering charges under an Interpol warrant, spending two years and eight months in prison there, he said.
Life inside was brutal. Showers and real bathrooms were scarce. Sexual assault was rampant. The cells were stuffed with dozens of inmates.
“It was every day of suffering, 24/7,” Alite said.
He was then extradited to the U.S. in 2006.
With no way out, he made a deal with federal prosecutors. But he doesn’t see it as cooperation, he says now.
“I don’t like them saying I cooperated, because I didn’t. I sat there for three years,” Alite said flatly. “They betrayed me. And what I’m trying to tell kids is, it‘s a life of lies.”
In early 2008, he pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges and admitted to two murders. He also testified against members of the Gambino family — including John Gotti Jr. — in exchange for a lighter sentence.
In 2011, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
He was released in 2012.
Life, in a small town
Englishtown is now home for Alite.
He lives in a comfortable home with his cousin, one of his sons and Tank, his 140-pound Cane Corso.
After prison, he became a motivational speaker and podcaster and often speaks to kids in inner cities. He also runs a (legitimate) construction company based in town.
The borough is ideally situated for him.
His parents live in different municipalities in Camden County, and his grandson, Brayden — his daughter’s son, who is now 8 — is in Burlington County. His other sons live in New York.
“I love the town,” Alite said, noting the tight-knit suburban community feel.
But he’d like to make Englishtown’s downtown more welcoming to businesses and families, similar to Princeton. He envisions more shops along Main Street — a bagel store and deli here, a donut shop there. He wants to beautify the streets, adding cobblestones and flowers.
He also wants to maintain the town’s threatened Lake Weamaconk and spruce up the surrounding land.
But he doesn’t have any specific policy goals concerning drug addiction or crime — “The police here do a great job,” he said. “There’s nothing really that‘s going on here that‘s detrimental to the safety or anybody here.”
His colleagues on the council have nothing but praise for Alite.
Councilwoman Janet Leonardis said he’s easy to work with.
“He puts in a lot of time trying to make Englishtown the best it can be, as do the mayor and other council members,” she told NJ Advance Media. “His past is his past, and he can’t change that. However, we live in the present, and presently he is a great councilman.”
Likewise, Councilman Patsy Fierro called Alite a “pleasure to be around.” He strives to listen to residents and find solutions, Fierro said.
“He’s not afraid of his past,” he added. “And he’s very friendly with everyone in town.”
But living in a tiny community has its drawbacks.
During Alite’s interview with NJ Advance Media, Englishtown’s polarizing mayor, Daniel Francisco, strolled into Alite’s backyard without permission, purporting to check in on a solar panel installation at the house.
Alite gave him a dirty look and pointedly paused mid-conversation for a few tense seconds.
Later on, Alite said he was furious about the stunt.
“If you weren’t on tape with me, I swear I would’ve been aggressive, and I would’ve said to him, ‘Don’t ever come on my property again without asking me,’” he told NJ Advance Media.
Francisco declined to comment.
Francisco and the resigned council members were locked in an ongoing drama, Alite said — something he isn’t remotely interested in.
A former member of the council said it resembled an “autocracy,” blaming the mayor. The mayor has blamed the council, previously saying he asked three members to resign when they “did something to me,” but declined to elaborate on what they allegedly did.
Alite, one of the newer council members, said he’s not pledging allegiance to anyone.
“They got the wrong guy,” he said. “If I went against the mob, do you think these idiots are going to tell me what to do?”
The future
The tragedy began with a car crash and a prescription.
Chelsea — affectionately nicknamed “Pooh,” as evidenced by the Winnie-the-Pooh teddy bears scattered throughout Alite’s house — started taking Percocet prescribed by a doctor after a bad wreck.
But she soon began buying it illegally to relax.
The loving mother of one wasn’t a partier. She didn’t even know she was taking fentanyl. But that fateful morning in 2022, she woke up and popped a pill laced with fentanyl to go back to sleep.
Chelsea never woke up again.
Alite blames himself.
He admits he missed a large swath of her life while in prison.
“I have guilt for it, yeah, big guilt,” he said. “Because maybe if I was there being her father on a daily basis, when she needed a hug or emotional help, you know, I could’ve been there.”
What the glamorous mobster movies don’t always show, Alite said, is the cost of being a gangster. The guilt. The emotional therapy sessions. The tears and the depression.
“Forget the tough guy stuff,” he said. “I cry a lot.”
But the one thing he doesn’t do? Live in fear.
Sure, he’s gotten his fair share of threats, he says. He doesn’t take them seriously. And yes, people have tried to kill him over the years — at least a dozen times by his count. He’s been stabbed in the stomach and the head in prison and on the streets.
People have held a gun to his head.
But it‘s been seven or so years since the last attempt, he says. And the mafia is different today.
“Years ago, the bosses didn’t cooperate against the underlings. Now all of the bosses are ratting on their soldiers,” he explained. “So there is no trust left in that world.”
In fact, his most frightening experience was a turbulent 45-minute flight from the Cayman Islands to Cuba because of terrible weather.
“I don’t like heights,” he said.
His reckoning, and newfound faith, occurred when he left prison, he says. But his daughter’s death propelled him into politics, including his current role on the council.
The Republican wants Jack Ciattarelli to be New Jersey’s next governor. He’s also a big Donald Trump supporter. A banner featuring a photo from the president‘s assassination attempt hangs from his porch. (“NEVER SURRENDER,” it declares in all caps.)
Alite said he’s frustrated by the influx of illegal migrants in recent years, the millions of dollars the United States spends on foreign aid and the previous pressure to receive the COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic.
“I know gangsters. I know what they’re doing,” he said of the government. “Illegal gambling was a crime when I was growing up, right? Now our government controls it. Marijuana was a crime. Now, look at all the dispensaries.”
Many Englishtown residents are frustrated by the four cannabis dispensaries on Main Street, all located within four blocks of each other. Alite, who lives directly next to one, said four is too many.
One day, he hopes to be elected to Congress.
There’s no legal barrier to electing someone convicted of crimes, according to Jenny-Brooke Condon, a law professor and expert in constitutional law at Seton Hall Law School.
The eligibility requirements are outlined in the Constitution — a person must be at least 25 years old, a citizen for seven years and live in the state in which they’re elected to join the U.S. House of Representatives. The U.S. Senate requires slightly older ages and citizenship lengths.
“If somebody was convicted, the question is only a political one, whether the people who are voting think that disqualifies them politically,” Condon told NJ Advance Media. “But if the voters agree to elect that person, there would be nothing that would bar them from serving.”
So would New Jersey voters actually send a former mobster to Congress?
“Nobody’s trying to tell you this man is a saint,” said Honig, the former federal prosecutor. “But what is clear is he is now a positive, productive member of his family and his community.”
Only time will tell if Alite actually runs for federal office. But in the meantime, he’s charmed many of his new constituents, a striking parallel to his childhood.
“Even when he ran around with all the bad boys back in the day, he was a leader,” said Sal Scalise, Alite’s cousin. “He would see you and give you a world of respect.”
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Brianna Kudisch may be reached at bkudisch@njadvancemedia.com.
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