Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

Mob princess Victoria Gotti ran into a bit of financial trouble a few months ago and almost lost control of her gaudy mansion on Long Island, as you may recall. We're guessing it was the stack of bills piling up on her white marble coffee table that led her to sign a deal earlier this year to pen a book about her, uh, rather interesting life, especially since she'd backed out of a deal to write a similar "tell-all memoir" a couple of years earlier in order "protect" her family's "reputation." But the financial crisis changed all that and Gotti's book, This Family of Mine, arrived in bookstores this week.More

• Madonna's backup dancers haven't been making friends at the Bryant Park Hotel. Reports a staffer: "They are presumptuous and cheap. Nearly every one of them have stiffed their bellman and servers, and what's worse is they have tons of stuff." [P6]
• The situations continues to deteriorate for Lindsay Lohan: She's rumored to be pawning jewelry to pay the bills. [Star via Popcrunch]
• Britney intends to "drop by Buckingham Palace" and say hi to the Queen when she's in London, which is awfully generous of her, isn't it? [Mirror]
• The circumstances surrounding David Carradine's death are still a little murky. Suicide? Sex-related accidental death? The investigation is still underway. [People, Us, TMZ]

Gotti Will Not Give In | You didn't really expect Victoria Gotti to let JPMorgan Chase take her marble palace away from her without a fight, did you? That's not how the Gotti family rolls, as history has shown us on more than one occasion. Gotti appeared in federal court in Brooklyn yesterday and blamed the non-payment of her mortgage on her ex-husband, Carmine Agnello, vowing that the bank would never get its hands on the property. "I'm never going to lose the home," she explained. If you're a JPMorgan shareholder, consider this a good indication that the bank may be forced to shell out more than the $348,000 it spent last year providing Jamie Dimon with a security detail. [Newsday, previously]

Congrats to JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon: He's now in possession of what may very well be the tackiest home in New York. A Brooklyn judge has given JPMorgan the go-ahead to foreclose on the Old Westbury home of Victoria Gotti, the gaudy home that the Mob princess has been trying to sell for many months now. It turns out Gotti hasn't paid her mortgage since September 2006, and she's in debt to JPMorgan to the tune of $650,000. Now that the bank has prevailed in court, it will be able to displace Gotti and her boys and sell off the estate at auction. And what an estate it is! In addition to a five-bedroom house with giant white columns in front, the property comes with a pool with waterfall, tennis court, and gazebo with pond, and copious amounts of gold plating that we're sure will eventually make its way to Dimon's Park Avenue apartment. After the jump, the judge's order as well as a pic of the new pink-and-gold bathroom that is now firmly in Jamie's manicured, lotioned hands. Oh, and in case you're wondering if it's wise for Dimon to be going up against a family with such a notorious past, you can relax. He's done battle with worse.   More

Victoria Gotti's Change of Heart | Last June, HarperCollins filed suit against Victoria Gotti after she failed to turn in a memoir she'd agreed to write (and for which she'd been paid a $70,000 advance). The reason? Gotti claimed the publisher had demanded she provide inside dirt on her late father, Mafia boss John Gotti, whereas she thought the book was going to just be about her. "They wanted more of dad than I was willing to give," she said at the time. It looks like someone's had a change of mind. Publishers Marketplace reports that Gotti has signed a new book deal:More

• Investment banker E. Stephen Benson has lowered the price of his penthouse apartment at 885 Park Avenue for the third time since first listing it for $13 million in early 2008. The two-bedroom pad, which includes a library, chef's kitchen, and wrap-around terrace (left), is now listed with Serena Boardman for $9.5 million. [Cityfile, Sotheby's]
• Andrew Weinberg, an exec at the private equity firm Lindsay Goldberg, has paid $8.35 million for a 14th-floor apartment at 170 East End Ave. [Cityfile]
• Lizz Winstead, the co-creator of The Daily Show, has paid $700,000 for a renovated loft on Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill. [NYT]
• Victoria Gotti has lowered the price of her Old Westbury mansion to $3.2 million, just weeks after listing it for $3.5 million. [Newsday, Laffey]

• Nearly seven months after it was reported that Christine Wasserstein, the second wife of Bruce Wasserstein, had found a buyer for her apartment at 1030 Fifth Avenue, she's finally closed on the sale, albeit for less than its original $34 million asking price. The 11th-floor co-op, which is still listed in Bruce's name on property records, sold to Blackstone senior managing director Prakash Melwani for $27.5 million. [Cityfile]
• Denise LeFrak Calicchio has paid $2.55 million for a two-bedroom condo at 255 East 74th Street. [Real Deal]
• Is there no one in the world who wants a faux Roman palace? Victoria Gotti has put her Old Westbury mansion on the market for the fifth time in recent years. The manse is now listed at $3.5 million. [Newsday, Laffey]
• Film producer Vittorio Cecchi Gori has put his 5,500-square-foot penthouse at the Trump International on the market for $28.5 million. [NYP, PDE]

• George Clooney's ex-girlfriend Sarah Larson may have cheated on the actor when she had a "weekend fling" with a "media mogul," although it appears she's paying for her crime since her new boyfriend is a lowly nightlife promoter named Joey Vanas. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan says her dad is an "embarrassment and a bully" who won't stop talking about her to the press because he's addicted to fame. Sounds about right. [The Sun]
• Naomi Campbell's Russian billionaire boyfriend Vladmir Doronin picked her up a $18.5 million penthouse apartment in Sao Paolo as a gift. [P6] 
• The next socialite guest star on Gossip Girl? That would be Cristina Greeven Cuomo. [P6]

The voicemail recording on Victoria Gotti's cell phone.

Previously: John Leguizamo, Carl and Gail Icahn, James Lipton, Dylan Lauren, Andre Balazs, Atoosa Rubenstein, Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler, Lewis Black, Katie Couric, and Tinsley Mortimer.

One of the rumors sparked by the ousting of HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman was that the book publisher's profits were down; perhaps that's why they're now bothering to sue Victoria Gotti to get back a $70,000 advance paid in 2005. The organized crime scion-slash-reality TV star had signed a contract with erstwhile HarperCollins editor Judith Regan to write two books, including a memoir about her father, "Teflon" don John Gotti. According to the suit filed, two unacceptable outlines were rejected, but Gotti's agent says she chose to cancel the contract when Regan left the company, and will pay back the money when she gets a deal with another publisher. Victoria must be relieved to be finally upholding the family tradition with a day in court, even if spending your book advance on spray-tans and hair extensions isn't quite murder, extortion and racketeering.