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The turning point came on Columbus Day 1995.

Ercole (Echo) Gaudioso, a veteran state Organized Crime Task Force investigator, and Pasquale (Nino) Perrotta, then a 27-year-old rookie investigator for the Bronx District Attorney's office, were celebrating the end of the first case they had worked together at an Italian restaurant. What began two years earlier as an investigation into a mob bookmaker suspected of having ties in the boxing industry, was about to be wrapped up with loansharking indictments against Gambino capo Greg DePalma and his mobster son Craig.

Gaudioso, 57, got a beep on his pager; Craig DePalma was on his way to a late-night meeting in Queens. It sounded important. (Gaudioso, above left) leaves White Plains Federal Court with a rifle seized during the investigation following a bail hearing for Gotti last year.)

"We're in White Plains, he's in Scarsdale," Perrotta (right) said. "We can make it. Let's go."

They ran to their car and soon were careening down the Hutchinson River Parkway, through the Bronx, over the Whitestone Bridge and into Queens. Gaudioso manned the binoculars. Perrotta (right) was behind the wheel.

Forty minutes later, at Liberty Ave. and the Van Wyck Expressway, Gaudioso

spotted DePalma in a silver Chevy Blazer; Perrotta eased in behind it. They watched as DePalma slowed beside a black Oldsmobile.

Seconds later, both cars pulled away. On the passenger side of the Olds, illuminated by street lights, was Junior, looking and acting like a mob boss. It was 10:40 p.m.

For about 90 minutes, Gaudioso and Perrotta watched. They saw Gotti enter a commercial building owned by brother-in-law and reputed mobster Carmine Agnello, and then leave for a "walk talk" with two other men.

Not long after midnight, after Gotti and the others had left, Gaudioso called assistant Bronx district attorney Vincent Heintz at home and gave him an earful of details that linked Gotti (left) to DePalma. (right)

This information would allow the state's Organized Crime Task Force to wiretap Gotti's telephones and bug his offices.

But Gaudioso and Perrotta weren't done. As they drove away on Sutphin Boulevard, they realized they were being tailed by a blue Suburban with three men inside.

At a red light, the Suburban, registered to Agnello's junk yard business, stopped on the driver's side.

"Hey, how's it going?" said a brute of a man in the back seat.

"His pock-marked face, cold eyes and menacing look reminded me of a guy from my old neighborhood," recalled Gaudioso. "We called him Sally Gaga."

Sally Gaga's hands were hidden below the open window, and Gaudioso kept his eyes there, hoping not to see the barrel of a shotgun emerge.

He pulled a police identification shield from the visor, flashed it and smiled, hoping the brute in the back seat was aware of the supposed mob rule  against shooting cops.

"Uh, okay," Sally Gaga said. The driver made a quick U-turn and the Suburban disappeared into the night.

"That was the only time during the entire investigation that I was concerned," Gaudioso said. "We were going out to celebrate. I had left my gun in my locker."

Gaudioso told Gang Land there was no reason to be at Gotti's sentencing.

"Our job is done," he said. "We saw him (Gotti) when it counted. Now he's going one way and we've moved on, too. I'm on another case and Nino's with the Secret Service."

The would-be don told the judge he was a "man's man" and pretty much behaved like one as he received a six year, five month prison term. He was given 45 days to sell his house and say good bye to his four children and pregnant wife Kim.

Gotti, 35, pleaded guilty last April to charges that include bribery, labor racketeering, gambling, loansharking, tax evasion and lying on a mortgage application. And while Junior was the focal point of the hour-long session before White Plains Federal Judge Barrington Parker, the legacy of his jailed for life father permeated the entire day.

Bill Sewell, a private investigator who welcomed a jubilant Dapper Don to a waiting limousine after his February 1990 acquittal with a huge grin, was somber as he guided Junior through the crowd of reporters to face the music.

"You grew up in circumstances where your father was incarcerated, so you knew the kind of toll that takes on family and particularly children," said Parker. "The pattern, for reasons I am unable to fathom, is duplicated."

Prosecutors Marjorie Miller and Bart Van de Weghe had invoked Junior's high ranking in his father's crime family in asking Parker to impose the 87-month maximum sentence he could receive under his plea deal. Junior was promoted to capo in 1990 and regularly attended Wednesday night capos meetings at the Ravenite Social Club and took over as acting boss when his father was sentenced in 1992, according to the feds.

Lawyer Gerald Shargel played a 15-second videotape of the elder Gotti speaking to his daughter Angel at Marion Federal Penitentiary, arguing that when the Gottis spoke of uncles and cousins, they were talking about blood relatives, not capos and soldiers, as prosecutors contended.

"When I say cousin, what's the crime?"Gotti asked loudly, as all eyes in the courtroom, including Junior's, fixed on the television screen. (Ruth Pollack sketch at right.)

Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, who has been working on the elder Gotti's never-ending appeals, implored Parker to give Junior a break, especially since his wife was pregnant with their fifth child and would need her husband around the house. 

Outside the courtroom, another of Junior's lawyers, Bruce Cutler, who beat prosecutors three straight times during the Dapper Don's heyday, inevitably held court. He conceded that the elder Gotti was not happy about "Young John's" decision to plead guilty, but he still adores him.

"He may have been deadly against this plea -- and there's no secret about that -- but what's done is done," said Cutler, adding that he and Junior's other lawyers all believed Junior's plea deal was the correct decision. "And we still feel it's the right decision." 

The investigators only picked up snatches of the conversations, but the following day, it became clear that Lino and Lombardo (right) had prevailed over Genovese soldier and their future codefendant, Ernest (Butchie) Montevecchi.

Once again, FBI agents were at the restaurant, watching and listening as the gangsters -- eating hot dogs and french fries instead of pasta and veal -- settled their differences in animated conversations at several tables and in an alcove between the inside and outside doors of the restaurant.

While there is some disagreement over exactly what the dispute was about and who won the sitdown, so far, the feds' scorecard has five wiseguys, including Bonanno soldier John (Boobie) Cerasani (left) getting sentences ranging from 57 to 97 months.