Gotti Settles All Family Business

Growing Up Gotti star Victoria Gotti has made a career out of playing her family’s mafia ties for laughs, but some organized crime buffs have been wondering if her mobbed-up image is really just an act—especially after the peroxide Gambino princess showed up at Gotti stooge Julius Nasso’s getting-out-of-prison party last Thursday.

We’re told that Nasso, a pharmacist turned film producer, hosted the gala affair at his multimillion-dollar waterfront home, Villa Terranova, in Staten Island as a dual celebration: to launch his new company, Cinema Nasso Film Studios, and to toast his freedom after serving nine-and-half months of a one-year federal prison bid for attempting to shake down his former partner, mystical martial arts actor Steven Seagal, in 2000. Among the 17 other wise guys indicted—and eventually imprisoned—was Peter Gotti, Victoria’s uncle and the brother of the Gambino crime family’s shark-suited godfather, John “The Teflon Don.”

According to one source at the event, Nasso was shocked to see a Gotti at his house: “Jules has been trying to publicly distance himself from the mob. Why the hell would he want Victoria at his party? He certainly didn’t invite her.”

Nevertheless, multiple sources say the heavily bejeweled Nasso was the consummate host, giving Gotti and her assistant a tour of the grounds, showing off his Italianate fountain (which sprays colored water), and making small talk during the Grucci fireworks display.

To the other 200 or so guests feasting on Italian delicacies, Gotti’s presence made the event seem “straight out of The Godfather,” according to another partygoer.

An NYPD detective who has worked the Gotti beat in the past wonders, “Why would Victoria go to the party? Was she going to see Nasso as a representative for her family, sending the message that even though her father is dead and the other players are in jail for life the Gottis still remember their old partners in crime?”

A former friend of the A&E reality show star offers a simpler explanation: “Victoria would go to the opening of an envelope if she thought it would get her some press.”

Nasso denies that Gotti’s appearance was a surprise. “I don’t know her, but she was on the publicist’s list,” the producer says. “I had the honor of meeting her that night, and I respect her for what she does. Whatever her family’s involved with, that’s their business.” As for the tour, Nasso says, “That’s a joke. I just said hello to her. I wasn’t with her for more than five seconds. I never met the woman before.”

A rep for Gotti said the mob daughter “did not show up unannounced.”