Also Convicted Of A Rockaway Hit
Federal jurors convicted a former mobster last Friday, June 8, for a racketeering conspiracy that led to the murder of a 30-year-old rival outside a Woodhaven bar in 1996 and the killing of another associate in the Rockaways in 1991, law enforcement sources said.
John Burke, 50, was found guilty of participating in four criminal plots including the trafficking of cocaine and marijuana, an attempted robbery, and the homicides of Bruce Gotterup and John Gebert. He faces a mandatory life sentence which will be handed down later this year by U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson Jr., who presided over the trial.
According to federal law enforcement sources, Burke shot and killed Gebert, 30, outside a bar on Jamaica Avenue in Woodhaven on July 12, 1996. Reportedly, the assassination occurred as part of a plot concocted by Burke and other alleged members of the Gambino crime family to retaliate for previous disputes with Gebert and assume control of drug trafficking in the area.
Burke was also found guilty of shooting Gotterup, 36, in the back of the head on the Rockaway boardwalk on Nov. 20, 1991. As with the Gebert shooting, authorities said Gotterup was gunned down in a retaliatory act by the suspect for stealing money from Gambino family members and showing disrespect toward a highranking member of the syndicate.
Published reports noted that a Staten Island man was originally fingered by his girlfriend in 1995 for the Gotterup murder and spent two years in jail before the charges were ultimately dropped by prosecutors. Burke was prosecuted for the murder by the state in 2001, but was ultimately acquitted.
“[Burke] spent over half his life pursuing a career of murder and violence,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta E. Lynch said in a statement last Friday. “He will now be held accountable for the destruction and pain he inflicted on his victims and their families and will have the rest of his life to contemplate the choices he made. We sincerely hope that today’s verdict helps bring to an end the long wait for closure for the families of Burke’s victims.”
Burke, who was incarcerated in state prison for a separate case, was indicted by the federal government in August 2008 along with several other reputed Gambino crime family members, including John Gotti Jr., the son of the late mob boss John Gotti.
Lynch thanked the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General for its assistance in the prosecution of the case and the U.S. Marshals Service for its assistance at trial.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, Evan M. Norris and Whitman G.S. Knapp prosecuted the case.
