John Gotti Jr.: Dad Said Mob Life Ends in Jail or Death

NEW YORK (CBS) In his first extended television interview, John Gotti Jr. tells "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft that he gave up a life that included a daily fear of getting "whacked."

"When you hang out in the streets you're hanging with a different type of a person," Gotti explained. "You don't know what's gonna happen."

For nearly three decades, the name "Gotti" has been synonymous with organized crime in America. According to the federal government, John Gotti Senior., and later his son, John Junior., ran the Gambino crime family - the largest, most influential mafia family in the country.

Gotti Sr., who died in prison eight years ago, was a ruthless gangster who craved celebrity and recognized that the only way out was jail or death, according to his son.

"He felt that anybody who really truly lived in the streets, not the fringe players, not the frauds, not the pretenders, if you really, truly lived it like John did, at the end of the day, you gotta die or go to jail. That's the rules. That's the way it was," Gotti told 60 Minutes.

But Junior, if you are to believe his story, wanted out.

After the federal government put him on trial four times in the last five years without getting a conviction, he agreed to sit down with CBS News' "60 Minutes" and talk about his family saga.