John 'Junior' Gotti is accused of gutting a man in a Queen's bar fight, but try telling his mother that her son's done wrong. Photo / AP

John 'Junior' Gotti is accused of gutting a man in a Queen's bar fight, but try telling his mother that her son's done wrong. Photo / AP

The New York racketeering trial of John "Junior" Gotti, son of the late mafia boss, so far suggests a man who knows his own mind.

Gotti is accused of gutting a man in a Queen's bar fight. A witness who talked to the cops was found hanging from a low tree. Eighteen jurors in this trial have made last-minute appeals to be dismissed. Charges include extortion, kidnapping, robbery and shootings.

All this is phooey to Gotti's mother, Victoria. Why is everyone ganging up on her son?

Leaping to her feet behind the defence bench she screamed: "They're railroading you! They're doing to you what they did to your father!"

Turning to the judge and prosecutors Mrs Gotti yelled: "F***ing gangsters! You sons of bitches! Put your own sons in there."

The 45-year-old defendant tried in vain to silence her.

"OK, mother! Ma, please," he said.

"I can deal with it. I'm OK. Don't worry about it. I'm fine."

Can a man continue to chill and terrify when he cannot control his own mother? Evidence demonstrates that there is no contradiction.

No man is a monster to his mother and monsters often idealise their mothers.

Violet Kray, daughter of a bare-knuckle fighter, and mother of notorious criminal twins, still attracts mawkish tributes.

One recently posted blog read: "She was a mum in a million, always putting her boys first and herself last but they loved her beyond beleaf [sic]."

It may be a criterion for powerful men and psychopaths to have strong-willed and uncritically devoted mothers.

In his biography of Stalin, Simon Sebag Montefiore questions whether the Russian tyrant would have succeeded if his mother, Keke, had not fought for his classical education.

Her volatility may also have helped to unhinge him. She beat him and smothered him. She was both pious and promiscuous, as Stalin became.

According to witnesses, Stalin, nicknamed Soso, was "devoted to only one person - his mother".

Even so, he dreaded her overbearing interventions.

"She never hesitated to voice her opinion on everything," said a childhood friend.