Former mob boss Gotti hospitalized

Gotti had a tumor removed from his neck in 1998.

SPRINGFIELD, Missouri (CNN) -- Former New York mobster John Gotti was taken to a hospital Thursday from his prison cell, a family friend said.

Gotti, who suffers from cancer, was transferred from the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield to an undisclosed hospital, said Lewis Kasman, who called himself a friend of the family.

Kasman said he was told that Gotti, 61, was suffering from low blood pressure, but that he was in stable condition and resting comfortably.

Gotti had a cancerous tumor removed from his neck in 1998. He became known as the "Teflon Don" after he was acquitted of government charges in three trials.

Gotti was transferred in 2000 to the medical-surgical ward of the federal facility in Springfield from the maximum security federal prison in Marion, Illinois.

RESOURCES People in the News: John Gotti

In June 1992, he was sentenced to life without parole for racketeering, conspiracy to racketeer, defraud and obstruct justice, murder in the aid of racketeering, operating an illegal gambling business and witness tampering. His victims included former Gambino crime family boss "Big Paul" Castellano, who was shot dead in 1985 outside a steak house in Manhattan. Gotti then assumed leadership of the New York family.

His son, John A. Gotti, became a federal inmate in 1999 when he began serving a six-year sentence for racketeering, bribery, and tax evasion in an upstate New York prison.