THE BIRTH OF BABY MICHAEL
Michael was born June 18, 1986—the same birthday as his father. Our fighting started when Michael was 2 or 3 months old. My husband started staying out late—I think he was already starting to fool around—coming home at three in the morning, waking up my son in the middle of the night and playing with him. Twice a week, then three times a week. He loved his son to death. He was very good to him, buying him things—different toys and animals. He would take him out during the day but not in normal situations. My son didn’t want to go with him. My son said, “I don’t want to sit in the car while he is talking to this guy or that.”

THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH “JUNIOR”
We were very close to Junior Gotti. Michael baptized his second son. My brother [Frank, also a Gambino mobster] was in a bad car accident in 1991 and almost died, and John went in the ambulance with him and moved him to Manhattan so he could get better treatment. John was like an uncle to my son. He would buy him baseball cards.

SCENES FROM THEIR MARRIAGE
I never had proof he was cheating, but I knew. The first confrontation occurred in ’95, ’96. I got a job in a school in Mill Basin as an aide. I wanted to go to work; he never wanted me to. “Stay home. Take care of Michael.” I came home one day and heard him upstairs on the phone in the bedroom, saying, “I’ll pick you up tonight. Just get dressed.” I ran up. “Who were you talking to?” “Louie.” “Louie? Why’d you hang up the phone?” “It’s none of your business.” He would curse like a maniac and go crazy. I called my brother. “I can’t take this no more. If you know something, you better tell me.” He said, “I don’t know nothing. If you’re unhappy, then leave.” Even my brother would never tell me.

For twelve years, I tried to have another child with him. He did not want to. I thought, If we have another baby, everything will be all right. One time he said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll go out and have a baby for you.” “What did you say? What are you, sick?” The problem is that I can’t conceive naturally—I have only one tube—so I did artificial insemination three times and in vitro. It didn’t work, and right after that he took the girl [his then-mistress Madelina Fischetti] to get pregnant with the same procedures.

In September 2000, Mikey Scars was indicted on federal extortion charges stemming from the Gambino family’s control of a topless joint in Atlanta, Georgia—and released under house-arrest conditions. He was acquitted the following year.

In December, we get a Christmas card: “Congratulations to Michael and Madelina on their new baby boy—more to come.” I read this not even realizing what I am reading. Two seconds later, it hits me and I fell on the floor. This is a year after I tried to have another child with him. And I learn that he has a 6-month-old son. He turned beet red: “Someone’s making up lies.” But I knew it was true as soon as I looked in his face.

My mother and sister came. My son is in the basement and they’re trying to control him. He punches the wall and breaks his hand. A big commotion. It was worse than somebody dying. About a half-hour later, he sits me down in the den—my mother and sister had me on both sides; I was like a rag doll—and says, “I can’t lie to you anymore.” That had to be the worst day of my life.

I made him call her. He had an apartment he put her in on Shore Road in Brooklyn. He handed me the phone, and I said to her, “Where do you come off having this child? I’m married to this guy for seventeen years.” She didn’t answer. I said, “What’s the matter? You’re not woman enough to answer?” He took the phone and hung it up. So I took the phone and hit him over the head with it.

I let him stay. I was out of my mind. I couldn’t make a decision. He stayed five months. My poor son would try to console me, a 14-year-old boy. Finally, one day I said, “You got to get out of here.” He said, “Well, I’m on house arrest.” I said, “I don’t care.”

HER SON’S JAILHOUSE VISIT WITH JUNIOR
In early 2003, Mikey Scars was having second thoughts about turning against Junior Gotti because his son, Michael, did not want to relocate with him under the witness protection program. Around that time, young Michael visited Junior in upstate New York, where he was serving a 77-month sentence for a 1999 racketeering charge. Scars contends Junior sent Michael Jr. home with a message for Scars: that all would be forgiven if he changed his mind about becoming a rat.