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By Jerry Capeci

Sciascia moved to the Big Apple two years ago after Canadian officials ruled his mob activities made him a public menace. He is only the second New York mobster to be executed since 1993, when Colombo capo Joseph Scopo was killed in the wake of the bloody 1991-1992 mob war that left 12 dead and many others wounded.

Genovese capo Ralph Coppola was rubbed out last fall, according to law enforcement officials, but his body has not been recovered.

Sciascia, 65, was shot at very close range, and his body transported and dumped on Bollner Ave. near the Hutchinson River Parkway, detectives told Daily News police reporter John Marzulli.

Police had no immediate motive for the rubout, which mob watchers said had to have been approved by reigning Bonanno boss, Joseph Massino. (left) "He had tons of cash from his drug days," said one investigator. "Whatever it was, you can bet it had something to do with money."

Sciascia lived in a luxurious home in Harrison and owned a house on Stadium Avenue in the Bronx. He ran a small construction company and conducted mob business out of a small jewelry store in the East Tremont section, said one investigator.

Sources said Sciascia controlled a crew of Sicilian born mobsters, all but one located in the Montreal area. Authorities are looking to question the lone New York based soldier, Baldo Amato, about the slaying. Amato, a former bodyguard for former Bonanno boss, Carmine Galante, failed miserably in that role when the cigar chomping Mafia boss was shot to death in 1979 as they dined at an outdoor patio of a Brooklyn restaurant. Amato was long since gone when the crime scene photo at the right was taken.

Sciascia was indicted with Gene Gotti, Carneglia and many others on heroin trafficking charges. After two mistrials, Gotti, the younger brother of imprisoned Mafia boss John Gotti, and Carneglia were convicted in 1989 and sentenced to 50 years.

Sciascia and two others were tried separately and acquitted the following year after a juror received a $10,000 pay-off and helped sway the panel to acquit, according to former Gambino underboss Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano. At John Gotti's trial, Gravano testified that he paid the bribe and was reimbursed later by one of the beneficiaries, Gambino capo Edward Lino.   

Lino and the other acquitted defendant, Bonanno soldier Joseph LoPresti (left), are also dead. Lino was whacked in 1990 in Brooklyn, LoPresti in 1992 in Montreal.

In a 94-page ruling, Judge Barrington Parker ruled that $358,000, a .32  handgun with a silencer, and a list of reputed gangsters up for promotion in the Gambino crime family was seized legally during the search of a basement in a building in Queens, owned by Mike McLaughlin, a close pal of young Gotti.

Carefully picking his words, Parker said claims that state Organized Crime Task Force investigators had planted evidence in the basement were "distorted."

He will also allow prosecutors to use a list of guests at Gotti's 1990 gala wedding celebration, which reads like a Who's Who of La Cosa Nostra, and the "Marion Tapes" of Junior meeting with his jailed-for-life father at the federal prison in Marion, Ill. (left) Prosecutors claim the videotaped conversations show that Junior was serving as the acting boss for the onetime Dapper Don. 

Junior and two others are scheduled to go to trial on April 6 on charges of extortion, loan sharking and fraud. Junior is also charged with armed robbery of a drug dealer. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison.

In what was a foregone conclusion, Parker ordered prosecutors to eliminate a "conspiracy to murder" phrase from the indictment since it had applied  to others who have pleaded guilty and no longer in the case. They were  charged with plotting to murder two men who had killed a bouncer and waiter at Scores, the Manhattan strip club that is the focus of several extortion counts in the indictment.

"This is by no means the end of the world or anything close to it," said Gotti's lawyer, Gerald Shargel, minimizing the significance of the ruling. "Courts rarely suppress wiretap evidence and we're prepared to meet it head on."

Shargel insists the toughest evidence against Gotti comes from five mob informants, who will testify Gotti supervised the extortions of Scores and two construction firms, and headed lucrative gambling and loansharking rings.

Notorious heroin kingpin Leroy (Nicky) Barnes (right) was so angry he wanted to kill his drug partners, his wife, and his girlfriend. He had just learned the two women in his life were screwing around and doing drugs, and to make matter worse doing it all in front of his young daughters.

It was 1981 and Barnes was in the fourth year of a life sentence, so he did the only thing he could to get even -- he offered to cooperate and drag them into drug deals with undercover narcotics agents.

Barnes had no beef with the Mafia gangsters who supplied him with dope,  but when told he'd have to set them up as part of the deal, he agreed to go all the way.

As a pretext, Barnes and several other drug dealers were transferred from various prisons to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan and subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in January 1982.

For two months, Barnes approached his targets and tried to entice them into deals with his girlfriend, Beverly Ash, or his wife, Thelma Grant. Almost all took the bait, were indicted on drug charges, and like Grant, convicted. Ash was killed after her arrest.

Barnes failed, however, to nail Matthew Madonna, the Luchese associate who supplied him 20 to 30 kilograms of heroin a month for five years and had been nailed in 1975, convicted, and sentenced to 30 years.

"We're yesterday's news, Nick. Go do your time, that's what I'm gonna do," said Madonna, who was released from Lewisberg Federal Penitentiary in 1995, after serving the mandatory two thirds of his term.

Three years later, Barnes was released as a reward for his cooperation,  about the same time Madonna was earning a reward for his silence and other things and was inducted into the Luchese crime family.

Several readers have asked recently about the spectacular rubout of Albert Anastasia.

There is no doubt that the Oct. 25, 1957 murder of Anastasia (left) at the Park Sheraton Hotel barbershop was orchestrated by his then-underboss Carlo Gambino, who took over the crime family much the same way John Gotti did nearly 30 years later when he engineered  the execution of Gambino's successor, Paul Castellano. One major difference was that Gambino had the support of the boss of the other dominant crime family, Vito Genovese. Both were very ambitious, and used guile and political scheming to plot the assassinations of Anastasia (above) and Frank Costello, who until only a few months earlier, had been boss of what is now known as the Genovese family.

To kill Costello,Vito Genovese enlisted up-and-coming gangster Vincent (Chin) Gigante. In May 1957, Gigante failed miserably in his assignment when he merely grazed his target (left).  But Genovese succeeded in his ultimate goal. Costello got the message, promptly stepped down, and  Genovese took over. With Genovese on top of his group, Anastasia was isolated and gave Gambino the courage to make his move. He also had the support of Tommy Lucchese and perhaps Joseph Profaci. Joseph Bonanno, who was in Italy at the time, claims he knew nothing about the plot, and was stunned by it. Anastasia went for his last haircut, was killed, and Gambino was Boss.

Gigante (right) pulled the trigger on Costello, but the identity of the shooters in the Anastasia rubout is still open to debate.

Joey Gallo and members of his crew have long been suspected of being on the team that killed Anastasia. This would indicate that Profaci was in on the plot since Gallo belonged to Profaci's family. That sort of makes sense because Anastasia had moved to the top by killing a long time Profaci ally,  Vincent Mangano. It would also mean that Gambino had the backing of three of the four other New York Families and confident that his coup would not be opposed. Another Profaci gangster, Carmine (Junior) Persico (right) later complained to an informer that he had done the work but Gallo had gotten the  credit.

But it's against mob protocol to use outsiders kill a member of your family. When Gotti knocked off Castellano, one of  the minor justifications for the power grab  was that Castellano had approved the murder of one of his own capos by  the Genovese family. Having Profaci gangsters hit Anastasia would fall into this category. Consequently, it would seem more likely that mobsters loyal to Gambino and Joseph Biondo, (who became Gambino's first Underboss), were the shooters.   

But there is evidence that the Gallos were the gunmen. A Gallo associate (Sidney Slater) who turned informer said that when discussing the Anastasia hit one day, Joe Gallo referred to himself and four of his friends as the   "barbershop quintet." Gallo (right) and his brother Larry     were also said to have been "made" shortly after the hit,  a reward that often follows a successful   killing. A few years later, when the Gallos revolted against Profaci, Gambino supported them with the Commission, which later approved moving the Gallo crew into the Genovese family, where many Gallo mobsters have flourished, including reputed Genovese capo Frank (Punchy) Illiano (left) -- tabbed as a shooter shortly after the slaying.

Whoever handled the hit, probably had Profaci's blessing. Profaci saw the way the wind was blowing, and decided not to buck it. Gambino had the support of Genovese and Lucchese.  Bonanno probably took his trip to Italy because he knew about the plot and wasn't opposed, or knew he was outvoted. 

In JOE BONANNO: A MAN OF HONOR, Bonanno outlines  the plotting of the time. Bonanno definitely has his own agenda, but it's interesting reading.

Also interesting, although a lot less illuminating about the Anastasia hit, is a 1961 interview that Manhattan detectives had with New York Yankee great Joe DiMaggio when they learned, according to The Smoking Gun, that the Yankee Clipper had met the Mad Hatter shortly before the barbershop quintet filled him with lead.