More than 50,000 very wise viewers who visit this site each month might want to buy what you're selling. And Ad Director Suzanne Nicolucci  is waiting to make you an offer you can't refuse.

By Jerry Capeci

"I know I recognize you from somewhere," said Spatola, who recalled exactly where and when he had seen those smiling faces before when they cuffed him and said, "You're under arrest."

Some of the same FBI agents who arrested Spatola at his tiny storefront office had nabbed him in 1989 at his then-home in Staten Island for the same heroin smuggling charges. 

Spatola, 60, allegedly used his home near Palermo during the late 1970's to manufacture heroin and ship it to New York where cousin John Gambino, a Gambino family capo, handled local distribution.

As Spatola was dispatched to Italy to face trial in 1989, Gambino (left) was prosecuted here, eventually pleading guilty in 1993 to federal drug charges and receiving 15 years. Released on bail, Spatola fled, but was convicted in absentia last year and sentenced to 13 years. He's now at the Metropolitan Correctional Center awaiting extradition to Italy.

It's unclear exactly when Spatola returned to New York, but he's been here  long enough to get himself a nice home, a New York state driver's license and open a small construction company, Pronto Contracting.

Speaking of pronto, the FBI acted pretty quickly. A federal judge signed Spatola's arrest warrant Jan. 8.

The jurors showed up three consecutive days in color coordinated attire: On Tuesday, they all wore green;  Wednesday, they wore blue; for closing arguments on Thursday, those on the left side of the jury box wore red, those in the center wore white, and the right side wore blue.

On Friday, they dressed as individuals for the most important phase of the trial -- deliberations -- and things got ugly.

An hour after the jury got the case, a woman juror wrote Judge David Trager saying she was nervous because while examining evidence in the jury room she noticed addresses in Russo's phone book that were close to her home and job. She wanted off the case.

During questioning by Trager, the foreman and a court room clerk who had brought lunch to the jurors said other jurors didn't believe she was afraid, thought she simply wanted to go home, and weren't tainted by her stated fears.

But noting that the woman was "shaking and clearly terrified" while she was in court, and that her fears had to have prejudiced the entire panel, Russo's lawyer George Santangelo and lawyers for codefendant Dennis Hickey (left) asked for a mistrial.

Over objections by prosecutor Daniel Dorsky, Trager said he would grant the defendants a mistrial, if they really wanted one. He advised them to reconsider: "All the screwups the government did here, they will have a chance to correct if they have a new trial."

After a closed door session with their attorneys, Russo and Hickey withdrew their mistrial motion and the 11 remaining jurors started all over again and deliberated until the end of the day without incident. They are scheduled to resume today. It's anybody's guess how they'll be dressed.

Russo is charged with tampering with the jury that convicted his son Joseph of racketeering following its verdict in 1994. Russo, 65, and Hickey, 57, are also charged with encouraging a witness in the tampering probe to evade a federal grand jury subpoena and with hiding her from the FBI.

A federal appeals court closed the book last week on Genovese boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante. It unanimously approved the use of prosecution testimony from a terminally ill witness via closed circuit television.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals said the crucial evidence provided to a Brooklyn Federal Court jury by former Genovese associate Peter Savino did not violate the Chin's well established right to confront his accuser.

"Savino was sworn; he was subject to full cross examination; he testified in full view of the jury, court, and defense counsel; and Savino gave this testimony under the eye of Gigante himself," the panel wrote.

In fact, the court noted, Gigante declined an offer from Judge Jack Weinstein to roll his wheelchair to a spot  that would have put the Chin clearly in Savino's face, so to speak.

"Weinstein afforded defense counsel the opportunity to place Gigante's televised visage squarely before Savino," is how the appeals judges put it, supplying this transcript from the trial record:

"You don't want him to look at the defendant," asked Weinstein.
"Not necessary," said defense lawyer James Culleton.
"And you don't want the defendant to look directly eye to eye."
"We don't need it. Absolutely not, Judge."

The court cautioned that "closed-circuit television should not be considered a commonplace substitute for in-court testimony" but found that Weinstein's decision to allow it was amply supported up by the facts of the case.

Savino, the only one of six former mob killers to testify that he committed crimes with Gigante -- others said they heard about crimes Chin committed -- died of cancer three months after Gigante was convicted. In a drawing by courtroom sketch artist Ruth Pollack, lawyer Michael Marinaccio adds up the  murders by prosecution witnesses in his closing argument as Weinstein and Gigante look on.

Gigante, 70, was sentenced to 12 years. He is due out in 2007.   

As expected, the court upheld pretrial rulings by Weinstein and Eugene Nickerson that Gigante had feigned mental illness for three decades and was competent to stand trial. The court ruled that Weinstein permitted some testimony into evidence that he shouldn't have, but said, in the end, that since Gigante was acquitted of many counts, including six murders, the error was "harmless."

Pagliarulo, who took over the crew headed by capo Peter (Fat Pete) Chiodo when he decided to cooperate in 1991, was the point man the following year in the attempted murder of Chiodo's sister, Patricia Capozzalo.

Pagliarulo collapsed during a routine interview by a member of the prison's psychological staff on Jan. 15. He was pronounced dead at a community hospital, according to a Bureau of Prisons spokesman.

The contest has three sections with a total of 13 questions and is basically three individual matching quizzes. Each section has an extra possible match or two, just to make it a little trickier.  The rules are simple, the same ones for our previous contests:

One entry per person, via e-mail. The simplest way is to list your answers from No. 1 through No. 13. Anyone caught making more than one submission will be rubbed out along with his/her entry.

Previous contest winners, employees of Gang Land and the Daily News and their families, are ineligible to win a prize, but can still play along for the hell  of it. In case of ties, winners will be selected at random.

First prize is a copy of "Gotti: Rise & Fall," autographed, of course, by yours truly and co-author Gene Mustain. Incidentally, Gene submitted an entry to Contest #5 and signed his infant son's name. Luckily, we caught on to the scam, and will return Mustain's wife and child to him after the deadline to this contest.

Second prize is a similarly autographed copy of Murder Machine: A True Story of Murder, Madness and The Mafia.

Each question is worth one point. For those with problems in arithmetic, a perfect score is 13. Good luck.

During the 1963 Senate Hearings, which featured the testimony of  celebrated turncoat Joe Valachi, (right) several mobsters who were, or would eventually become Mafia bosses, were associated with the wrong crime families.

          Match the boss with the incorrect family in which he was placed.

This week, we begin our new Gang Land feature, On The Record. In the coming weeks, we intend to add several new departments. We hope to have an occasional guest column by experts with different points of view on organized crime.

We open up with what has been a Gang Land tradition for two years, first with Ask Andy, and more recently with Big Al's Corner -- a reply to a question of general interest from a reader. We think a question from Sugar Ray of New York is appropriate for our inaugural On The Record because his query echoes many from new arrivals to the Gang Land scene. Ray's looking for a "synopsis of family structures" and whether individual families control neighborhoods or specific rackets.

Cosa Nostra Families have similar structures. At the top is the Boss. Rounding out the family Administration are the Underboss and the Consigliere. The capos and soldiers are next in the pecking order. In the early 1900's, the boss was elected by a raised hand vote of family soldiers. Not much is known about these "elections," but it's likely they were more formality than  democracy. Who would want to be on the losing side of an election.

By the 1950's, the Mafia had simplified things. The Boss was still "elected," but only capos got to vote. Guess it became too cumbersome and noticeable for 250 men to squeeze into a cafe or social club. It would also be much harder to control the outcome. In 1996, after the assassination of Paul Castellano, for example, it was a snap for John Gotti -- (left)  with guntoting Sammy Bull Gravano (above) and Angelo Ruggiero (below) at the ready -- to gather up 20 or so capos to "vote" him in as Boss.

The Underboss is always selected by the Boss. In the distant past, the Consigliere -- a buffer between an angry Boss and a soldier -- was elected by the soldiers. Today, the capos elect him. In reality, of course, he's appointed by the Boss since capos are selected and serve at the pleasure of the Boss.

Soldiers are the lowest ranked members. At the turn of the century, only full blooded Italian males could be inducted. But today, membership can be attained by men whose fathers are of Italian heritage. Before a hoodlum  can be "made," he must prove himself to be a trusted associate for a number of years and assist in some way in a sanctioned killing. Today, there are said to be some who have not taken part in a murder, but they are few and far between.

During a Mafia War in 1930, standards were lowered and friends of friends were inducted. When the killings ended, unhappiness with a number of these unproven made men became a major issue. In 1931, a Commission, or Board of Directors of Mafia bosses, was formed. Among other things, the Commission oversaw the membership process to prevent the induction of unworthy mobsters. From then on, the names of all proposed members were circulated so other families could voice objections.

In the early going, crime families carved up their rackets geographically. But as American life became more complicated during the first 99 years of the 20th century, so has the way mob families coexist.

In New York, the five crime families do not control whole neighborhoods or individual rackets. It's kind of a combination of both. It's more a question of which family has the "rights" to what racket in which area.

For decades, the Genovese and Gambino crime families have dominated more labor racketeering rackets and moved into more legitimate business that the Luchese, Colombo and Bonanno families.

But mobsters in all crime families have moved into labor unions and various legitimate businesses and industries - from trucking to stocks and bonds -- with the general rule being not to infringe on another mobster's racket.

During the 1970's and 1980's, all the families -- except for the Bonannos --  formed "clubs" that shared kickbacks and other payoffs in construction, the  replacement window industry, and the private carting industry. They also  benefited from bid-rigging and other joint rackets throughout the city and its suburbs. In the bread and butter rackets of gambling and loansharking there is a so-called "two block rule" that prohibits a crime family from establishing a similar operation within two blocks of an existing one.

In areas of the country where one Family holds sway, there are similar rules. For example, no Cosa Nostra capo from Boston would try to open a bookmaking operation in Chicago without an okay from the Chicago Outfit. On the other hand, the territory of the Los Angeles Family has always been tested by the Outfit. The Cleveland and Pittsburgh families have moved in and out of Youngstown, Ohio depending on which Family had bigger muscles to flex at the time.

It's important to remember that the primary goal of mobsters is to make money, anyway they can. To achieve this, they constantly break whatever rules they have to, whenever it suits their purpose.