John Alite, a Gambino crime family associate turned councilman, was arrested in New Jersey on Friday on charges including extortion and terroristic threats, the state’s attorney general said.
Mr. Alite, a former hit man, was charged with multiple counts of theft by extortion; corporate misconduct; making terroristic threats; and usury, the act of lending money at an illegal interest rate.
Mr. Alite, 63, was previously jailed for killing at least two people during his time working with John A. Gotti, but after his release in 2012, he began working to rehabilitate his image and was sworn in as a council member for the borough of Englishtown, N.J., about 40 miles south of Newark, in March 2025.
Alongside another man, Stephen Locrotondo, 67, Mr. Alite was accused of granting loans with rates exceeding 50 percent annually before shaking victims down for money and property by threatening them with violence, according to court documents. Mr. Alite used his company, Straightened-Out Entertainment, to promote the scheme and made at least $75,000, prosecutors said.
Mr. Alite’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
“Our office is dedicated to ensuring that all businesses conduct themselves fairly and lawfully,” Jennifer Davenport, New Jersey’s attorney general, said in a statement. “The conduct alleged in this case was anything but, and we will work to hold those who cheat and steal accountable.”
Mr. Alite obtained a residential property from at least one victim through his shakedown scheme, court documents said. The court documents said the charges were based on the accounts of two victims of Mr. Alite, who, with “reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror, did threaten to commit a crime of violence.”
When Mr. Alite’s house in Englishtown was searched by the New Jersey State Police, officers discovered multiple weapons, according to the court documents, including “two slapjacks, metal knuckles, an expandable baton, six baseball bats and approximately two dozen switchblade knives and other types of knives.”
According to prosecutors, Mr. Alite, in trying to collect debts, “threatened to hit an individual with a baseball bat across his head, and indicated that he has ‘gut’ people like ‘fish.’”
In 2008, after being arrested in Brazil, Mr. Alite pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges and admitted to killing two people, NJ.com reported. During a 2015 interview with CBS News, Mr. Alite said he had killed 15 people, shot up to 40 people and beaten roughly 100 more people using pipes and baseball bats.
Mr. Alite, who was released from prison in 2012, served a shorter sentence for his past crimes by becoming a witness in the prosecution of John A. Gotti, son of the mob boss John J. Gotti. He later became a motivational speaker in Monmouth County, he told The New York Post in 2025, before he became a councilman.
Daniel Francisco, the mayor of Englishtown, said in an email on Saturday that Mr. Alite was still a member of the council and his future with borough politics was in Mr. Alite’s hands.
“John is an elected official chosen by the voters last year,” Mr. Francisco said. “The decision to continue in the position rests solely on him. The borough and the council have no legal authority over his seat.”
In addition to his work in Englishtown, Mr. Alite ran a video podcast on YouTube, where he has more than 110,000 subscribers, and posted frequently on Instagram for his more than 520,000 followers.
In recent years, Mr. Alite established himself as someone who had learned his lesson and wanted to serve as an inspiration to others. On June 6, he posted a video to his Instagram page set to Sia’s “Unstoppable” that showed him in handcuffs before cutting to him dressed in a suit in council chambers.
“I went from walking in handcuffs to walking into City Hall,” Mr. Alite wrote in the caption accompanying the video. “Not because I was lucky. Because I chose to change, and I never stopped working to become a better man.”
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