By: Lloyd Sowers, FOX 13 News
The University of Tampa has changed a lot.
"This dorm wasn't here. This is unbelievable," says John Alite, who came here from New York 35 years ago to play baseball for UT.
But when an injury ended his baseball dreams, his bat became part of his arsenal as a Mafia enforcer.
"I admitted to dozens of shootings, multiple, multiple murders," he tells me. "I would go do shootings myself. I wouldn't even bring guys. I would shoot three, four guys at a clip."
He was an enforcer with the Gambino crime family, headed by John Gotti, Jr. and before that, his father, the "Dapper Don", John Gotti.
OPPORTUNITY IN TAMPA
Alite says he made lots of money as a mobster in New York, but saw opportunity in Tampa, the sunny and growing city he first visited as a teenager.
"Tampa was an open city," he says. “I moved money down here and I knew that I could push my way around a little bit. For years the Trafficantes were down here making big money, and now the Trafficante family is gone, I moved here and made a ton of money."
His businesses included valet parking and nightclubs -- cash businesses. His Club Mirage at Hillsborough Avenue and Dale Mabry was a hotspot.
"I had lines around the corner. I used to have 1,500, 2,000 people a night," he says.
ON THE RUN
But the FBI was on his trail. He fled the country and spent time in places like Paris, Colombia, and Rio de Janeiro. Finally, he was caught and put in prison in Brazil.
He was extradited to Tampa where he would admit to a shocking list of crimes.
"I believe I was involved in about 45 shootings," he says.
Alite says he doesn't know exactly how many people died in the shootings, maybe as few as eight or ten, he says.
"But at least I could be honest and say it could be up to 15 murders and 45 shootings."
RISKY BUSINESS
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Alite was released in 2013 following a deal with prosecutors to testify against other mobsters.
I ask, "Will they come after you?"
He only pauses for a second.
"The risk I take of someone coming after me, that's fine. I've dealt with my whole life that way."
But, he said he's had enough of the mob.
"I've been beaten all over the street. I've been stabbed, I've been baseball batted. I've been hit with cars. I've been in solitary confinement for years at a time," he says.
His life is chronicled in a new book by George Anastasia called "Gotti's Rules." In the book, he goes after his old bosses, the Gottis. He says Gotti Junior was an informant and his father was a thug with a made for TV image.
"He was a monster. He wasn't a good guy," Alite said.
"I CAN'T TAKE IT BACK"
Alite says he would like to be a consultant for movies and TV shows depicting organized crime. He says there's no honor in the Mafia.
"They swear loyalty to you, and when the time comes, they get the order, that friend is the one who'll shoot you in the back of the head."
Alite says he wants to convince young people not to turn to crime.
"What I did in the past, I'm ashamed of," he says. "I can't take it back. I told my children, I'm your dad, I love you, but I made terrible mistakes." If baseball had worked out for him 35 years ago in Tampa, life might have been much different.