When La Cosa Nostra hitman Robert Mormando surprised a secret courtroom hearing by coming out, the judge wasn't the only one stunned. Cooperating with prosecutors — unnecessarily so, now, since the men he was going to testify against pleaded guilty — Mormando used his sentencing hearing to also reveal to his former mob brothers that he's a homo. That, as you might have guessed in a world where machismo rules, is like putting a target on your head. But hell, so is testifying against an organized crime family. But ya know who's gotta be really pissed about Mormando's revelation? The Gotti family. Because wouldn't you know it, Mormando enjoyed a close, personal, intimate relationship with John Gotti's nephew.

Now, there's no evidence that Mormando and Richard Gotti (pictured, nephew of deceased Gambino bos John Gotti) ever got it on, but guilt by association rules supreme in the mob. NYT:

A divorced father of two, Mr. Mormando was born and raised in Ozone Park, a neighborhood in southern Queens long associated with John J. Gotti, the former (now deceased) Gambino family don. “At 16 or 17, he befriended them all,” said the knowledgeable person. “They made him feel important. He knows them all. They accepted him into their midst.”

Complicating matters is that Mr. Mormando had a close personal friendship with Richard G. Gotti, Mr. Gotti’s nephew, who is currently in prison on a federal racketeering charge. While there is no suggestion that the friendship was anything more than that, the mere fact that an avowed gay man was once “inseparable” from a Gotti is “an intolerable stain on their name,” said the person who has knowledge of the case.

Indeed, that type of “stain” has led to acts of violence in the past. In 1992, for instance, John D’Amato, a former boss of the DeCavalcante crime family, was murdered by an underling when, after an argument, his girlfriend told his cronies he was gay. “Nobody’s going to respect us if we have a gay homosexual boss sitting down discussing La Cosa Nostra business,” the gunman, Anthony Capo, testified at a murder trial in 2003.

And while we'd normally make a terrible prison rape joke about Richard Gotti, and how he's probably enjoying "intimate relationships" from his jail cell, let's be honest: Nobody is turning a Gotti into their prison bitch. If anything, it's the reverse.

Gottis are always tops.

Well, except for Victoria Gotti's twinks: