John Edward Alite was born on September 30, 1962, in Queens, New York, to a cab driver father and a secretary mother. Ethnically Albanian, his grandparents hailed from Gjirokastër. Raised in Woodhaven, Queens, he grew up alongside John A. Gotti, Jr., later becoming his close friend and best man at Gotti’s wedding. Alite earned a baseball scholarship to the University of Tampa but dropped out after three years due to an arm injury.

Drawn to crime early, Alite began working numbers and selling small amounts of cocaine as a teenager. These ventures escalated and led him into association with the Gambino family. Despite his non-Italian heritage excluding him from becoming a "made man," he became a trusted enforcer, driver, and hitman for the Gotti-controlled crew in Queens—and later Tampa. He earned the nickname "The Calculator" for his financial acumen and once again partnered with John Jr. in numerous illicit operations.

In January 2008, John Edward Alite pleaded guilty to a slate of racketeering charges encompassing two murders, four murder conspiracies, at least eight shootings, two attempted shootings, armed home invasions, and robberies. These crimes spanned across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Florida and arose from his activities with a Gambino crime family crew based in Tampa, Florida. He agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, providing testimony against Gambino enforcer Charles Carneglia, who was later convicted of four murders and sentenced to life in prison.

Alite also served as a government witness in the racketeering trial against John A. “Junior” Gotti. Prosecutors accused Gotti of running a drug trafficking ring in Florida and orchestrating murders—including the killings of George Grosso (1988), Louis DiBono (1990), and Bruce John Gotterup (1991). Alite implicated Gotti in at least eight murders, among other criminal acts.

During the trial, cross‑examination significantly undermined Alite’s credibility. On December 1, 2009, the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on all charges against Gotti, leading the judge to declare a mistrial and release Gotti. Jurors later stated they did not find Alite credible. Nonetheless, federal prosecutors in both Brooklyn and Tampa described his cooperation as "extraordinary" and "substantial" in letters to the sentencing judge.

On April 26, 2011, Alite was sentenced to ten years in prison. He was released in January 2012 under a five-year term of supervised release. However, in October 2015, he violated the terms of that release over a New Jersey gun case and spent an additional three months behind bars.