By Jerry Capeci

Every week, she travels upstate from Brooklyn to Naponoch to visit her son Frank who has spent 10 years in state prison for a crime he did not commit. (right)

"I'm devastated," said the 58-year-old woman as she fought back tears. "They have taken away my son for 10 years. You can't imagine the pain and suffering that comes with knowing that your son is innocent and that he's away in prison."

It's an open secret that Smith, now 32, was wrongly convicted of dealing drugs and sentenced in 1989 to 15-years-to-life. The feds have done nothing to correct the injustice, and New York FBI boss Lewis Schiliro and Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Zachary Carter, through their representatives,  declined to comment about the case.

The feds got the first indication that Smith may have been a wrong man as early as Sept. 5, 1988, months before his trial. They tape recorded Salvatore Fusco -- who along with Smith was suspected of being a member of the Bypass Gang, a sophisticated, mob-connected, big money burglary ring -- talking about the effect Smith's drug arrest was having on his mother.

"She took it very bad," Fusco said in a taped conversation. "She's taking it worse and worse as time goes on, 'cause the fucking kid is innocent."

Then in late 1991 or early 1992, former Gambino underboss Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano told his new federal law enforcement pals that they had the wrong guy, that Smith had been mistaken for "another guy named Frank."

To complicate matters even more, FBI documents show that during the summer of 1992, Colombo associate Frank (B.F.) Guerra told Smith's family that he was the other Frank. Guerra sold drugs for for Theodore Persico Jr., a nephew of former Mafia boss Carmine.

Until recently neither the FBI nor the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn did so much as lift a finger to spring Smith, even make a phone call. After several inquiries from this corner, however, the feds contacted New York City's Office of Special Narcotics Prosecutions, which began "looking into the case," said spokeswoman Maggie Gandasegui.

Guerra, a year older than Smith, made the admission shortly after Smith's father, Frank Sr. (seen at left in a visit with his son) was killed in a construction accident.

"Guerra approached Phyllis Smith and told her that he felt bad that her son was in prison, (that) he was the real Frank and he should be in prison,"  according to a three page summary of a 1995 FBI interview with turncoat Luchese mobster Frank Gioia Jr. Guerra initially said he might "come forward and plead to something and go to prison" so Smith could be released, according to the document.

At the time, Gioia was dating Smith's sister Kim (seen at right visiting her brother) and was a prime mover in the Smith family's efforts to convince Guerra to take the weight for the crime. Guerra had survived the Colombo family's bloody 1991-1992 war (an 18-year-old worker at his bagel store was one of 10 victims to die in the internal power struggle) and had just gotten probation on a possession of stolen property charge. He probably wasn't too keen on going locked up at the time.

Persico, who had been arrested along with Smith, didn't like the idea either. He was getting $500 a week from Guerra and told Gioia he "did not want (Guerra) to go to prison" and ordered Guerra not to confess, according to the document.

Gioia, a martial arts enthusiast, was so angry that he beat up Guerra. "I was mad," said Gioia, testifying last fall at the racketeering trial of Michael and Robert Spinelli. "I felt he was wrong for coming to a lady who is old enough to be his mother and lying to her," he said.

Phyllis Smith refused to discuss Gioia's account.

"My son has known for 10 years who it is, and he won't say. Is it right for me, his mother to say," she said, shaking her head, no.

James DiPietro, an attorney retained by the Smith family, said he plans to file a motion to reopen the case. "For starters, I intend to subpoena Gravano (right) and Gioia," said DiPietro. "It's horrific for law enforcement personnel with a duty to investigate crime to withhold evidence that could lead to the freedom of a wrongly accused individual."

Several law enforcement officials told Gang Land nothing was done for Smith because he got away with a few murders while awaiting trial on the drug charge. Ironically, Gioia, whose information may yet lead to a reversal of Smith's drug conviction, has also implicated him in murders that could send him away for life, sources said.

Smith was recently moved down to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and visited by FBI agents. They told him they knew he was innocent of the drug charge, but was involved in several murders, and wanted him "to join up with Gioia and work with us," said one source.

Gotti, who was 35 yesterday, rejected a plea offer that would have meant a jail term between 70 and 87 months -- minus the nine months he was held without bail last year -- and is scheduled for trial in White Plains Federal Court on Apr. 6.

Locascio (right) pleaded guilty to evading taxes on $260,000 in gambling profits he made in 1991 and 1992 as his father Frank was fighting -- and losing -- his endgame with the feds at his racketeering and murder trial with Junior's dad, the onetime Dapper Don.

The younger Locascio, 39, joins capos John (Jackie Nose) D'Amico and Louis Ricco and two other Gambino mobsters in taking relatively light   jail terms rather than risk heavy time after trial. He faces 10 to 16 months in prison and must forfeit $1.5 million.

In return for the plea, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office agreed to drop racketeering and extortion charges involving Scores -- the Upper East Side strip joint -- that could have gotten him up to 20 years. The Brooklyn U.S. Attorney also agreed to give Locascio a pass on any crimes currently under investigation by his office.

Junior has apparently decided to take the hard, tough gangster route, like his father. Allegedly the stand-in boss for his jailed for life dad, he faces a host racketeering charges. These include loansharking and bookmaking, shaking down Scores and two construction firms, beating and robbing a drug dealer, running bust out scams in the lucrative phone card industry -- and lying about his income in a mortgage application.

They are much less severe than the racketeering and murder indictment that sent his dad and Frank Locascio to prison for life. In that 1992 case, the elder Gotti, seen with federal prosecutor John Gleeson and Brooklyn Federal Court Judge I. Leo Glasser in this sketch by courtroom artist Ruth Pollack, was charged with five murders and several other violent crimes.

By no means, however, are the charges against Junior penny ante. Under federal sentencing guidelines, they carry a maximum of about 18 years  upon conviction. Junior can also expect to be hit with loansharking and tax charges by the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office that convicted his father.

After White Plains Federal Judge Barrington Parker told court officials to summon 400 prospective jurors for the high profile case, Junior rushed from the court house smiling and putting on the same tough-jaw air of confidence that his father had showed in his Teflon Don days in Brooklyn Federal Court.

"I'm optimistic, I'm ready to go," said Junior, who stayed away from his father's trials but obviously knew the script. Asked about the months of  negotiations and plea bargain offers in his case, he said, "We never entertained it."

Tore Locascio, an outspoken defender of his father and a daily spectator at the 1992 racketeering and murder trial of his father and the elder Gotti, declined to talk to the media.

First prize winner of a copy of  "Gotti: Rise & Fall," autographed by yours truly and co-author Gene Mustain, is Patrik Bjorkendal of Stockholm, Sweden, an economics major.

Bjorkendal, 20, became interested in the mob in 1992 when he saw "Goodfellas,"which starred Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci. He liked the movie, so he picked up a copy of "Wiseguy," the best-selling book by Nicholas Pileggi on which the movie was based. He "liked the book more than the movie," and began reading everything he could find about the mob.

Three years later, he visited New York and strolled by John Gotti's former Little Italy headquarters, the Ravenite Social Club, and had some cappuccino at Joe Butch Corrao's Cafe Biondo a few blocks down Mulberry Street.

Bjorkendal submitted the only perfect entry in the contest, which is really no surprise. This sharp dude says: "Mob Star, Murder Machine and Gotti: Rise and Fall are outstanding and the best mob books I have read."

Second prize -- a similarly autographed copy of "Murder Machine: A True Story of Murder, Madness and The Mafia" -- goes to Mario Machi, a political science major from Wytheville, Virginia.

Machi, 19, is a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh. His 10 correct answers (out of 13) beat out a large number of Gang Landers who had nine correct answers.

We're still fine tuning our seventh Gang Land contest and will post it either next week, or the week after.

With the gangster tableau in a continual state of flux, our readers are having a hard time figuring out who is leading New York's five Mafia families. This is how it stands for the moment:

Bonanno crime family boss Joseph Massino, 55, who has maintained a very low profile since his release from federal prison six years ago, has the distinction of being the only city crime boss not in federal prison. His brother-in-law, Salvatore Vitale, 51, is  the family's underboss.

Andrew Russo, boss of the Colombo family, was jailed for parole violation in September, 1996, about a year after Carmine (Junior) Persico stepped down. Russo (left) was elevated to family boss in a final resolution of the bloody intrafamily war that left 10 dead and many others wounded in 1991 and 1992.

Russo, 65, was convicted last month of jury tampering and obstruction of justice. He faces trial next month on racketeering charges. Joel (Joe Waverly) Cacace is the family underboss.  

The official boss of the Luchese family, Vittorio (Vic) Amuso, has been jailed since 1991. Amuso, 64, is serving a life sentence for racketeering and murder. His hand picked acting boss, Joseph (Little Joe) Defede, has been jailed for a year and recently pleaded guilty to labor racketeering charges.

Genovese boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante, 70, is serving a 12 year sentence for racketeering after he couldn't sell his crazy act to a Brooklyn jury in 1997. Acting boss Dominick (Quiet Dom) Cirillo is reportedly being aided in the role by a committee of three senior capos.

The official boss of the Gambino clan is John Gotti, (right) the onetime Dapper Don who is in a federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri recovering from throat cancer surgery. The family's acting boss, son John A. (Junior) Gotti, who has an April court date, has capos Peter Gotti and Joseph Arcuri to help out.