A corrected repetition follows:
By Christine Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - John "Junior" Gotti is being victimized because of his famous name, and had withdrawn from Mob business by the time he went to jail in 1999 on racketeering charges, Gotti's lawyer said on Tuesday in the trial's closing arguments
Gotti, 42, is accused of extorting construction companies, loan-sharking and ordering the kidnapping of Curtis Sliwa, founder of New York's Guardian Angels anti-crime patrols.
The latest charges against Gotti are bound by a five-year statute of limitations, which means the prosecution must prove Gotti was involved in at least one conspiracy after July 1999 -- five years before his indictment was handed down.
Prosecutors say Gotti never left the Mafia.
"The only withdrawal that John Gotti Jr. was making was at the bank," prosecutor Victor Hou said.
Gotti lawyer Charles Carnesi said Mob turncoats who testified against Gotti in the retrial were murderers looking to trade on the notorious Gotti name to reduce their prison sentences.
Gotti, son of late Mob boss John Gotti, who was known as the "Dapper Don," faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
"That's who the defendant is, John Gotti Sr., tried and convicted by a different jury and different prosecutors 15 years ago," said Carnesi. "The coin of the realm is Gotti."
Earlier, Hou told the Manhattan federal court jury that Gotti ordered the 1992 attack on Sliwa after he became angry that Sliwa set out to "destroy any romantic notions of the Mob" in criticizing his father and the Gambino family on his radio talk show.
Sliwa had testified in this retrial to being shot in a New York taxi cab in 1992.
Prosecutors say Gotti headed the Gambino crime family, one of New York's "five families," after his famous father was sent to prison in the early 1990s, where he died in 2002.
The younger Gotti was freed from prison last year after a jury cleared him of securities fraud but remained deadlocked on more serious racketeering charges, including the Sliwa attack, so Gotti is being retried on those charges.
His defense has largely remained the same, that he withdrew from the Mob after pleading guilty to separate racketeering charges in 1999.
Hou recounted testimony by Sliwa and other witnesses that Sliwa was kidnapped and shot several times in the back of a rigged-up taxi before diving out the front window.
"Behind that bloody shirt, that Guardian Angels' shirt, was a man who spoke his piece, who spoke his mind," said Hou. "He's been waiting 14 long years for justice."
"Hold John Gotti Jr accountable for his crimes, not because his name was Gotti, but because the overwhelming evidence in this case demonstrates that he's guilty," he said, referring to testimony and surveillance photos and tapes.
