Chris Paciello, co-owner of one of the hottest clubs in Miami's trendy South Beach, was charged yesterday in a racketeering indictment with being a member of a murderous mob crew headed by a pigeon fancying gangster from Staten Island, Anthony Spero. (right)

Paciello, just 28, whose real name is Christian Ludwigsen, hit the fast Miami scene in the  mid-1990's, opening a nightclub called Risk, after some tense times in Staten Island.

Paciello has reportedly dated Madonna and been romantically linked to comic Sandra Bernhard and supermodel Niki Taylor. He also seems to have quite a bit of violence for company.

According to the Daily News, he was involved in a "brutal fistfight" with Taylor's ex-hubby at a South Beach bar three years ago.

His partner in Risk, Michael Caruso, testifying at the drug trial of Peter Gatien, another entrepreneur who made a fortune opening trendy clubs, said that

in 1995, Paciello beat him up, stuck a gun in his face and threatened to kill him.

"I am not a gangster," he told the News last year, saying his former partner's charges were the ravings of a man with a "well-documented overactive imagination."

After Risk mysteriously burned down -- Florida investigators suspect arson, according to William Bastone in the Village Voice last year -- Paciello used the $250,000 insurance settlement to open another club, Liquid, with Miami native, Ingrid Casares, who also has been romantically linked to Madonna.

Casares, daughter of wealthy parents who fled Cuba during the revolution, and Paciello, tried to obtain a liquor license and open a club in Manhattan's Flatiron District two years ago but gave up the idea when   community activists vocally opposed the new nightclub.

Through his nightclubs and Casares’ connections, Paciello has become a celebrity of sorts himself. They attended a polo match in Bridgehampton, on Long Island's trendy and tony East End, (left) a few years ago and snuggled up for a beautiful people-type photograph, which was published in the Voice. And in the wake of Gianni Versace's murder, Paciello appeared on ABC's Prime

Early this year, Casares and Paciello opened the Bar Room in South Beach. The club's VIP room is a favorite nighttime stopoff room for the likes of   Samuel Jackson, k.d. lang, Tommy Hilfiger and Cameron Diaz. (It's located on Lincoln Road between Washington and Collins, for those who feel they have what it takes to pass muster with doorman Fabrizio Brienza and get inside.)

"Beautiful people," Brienza told the Miami Herald in September. "That's what we like. Bar Room is an upscale club. We look for cool people, fashionable people. No baggy clothes, no big chains, no sneakers, no polo shirts. But it depends. We don't allow shorts, but to me, certain people, they can also wear that and get in."

Sounds like somebody's idea of a fun place. Too bad Paciello, who still owns a piece of the place, may never again be back inside to rub elbows and other things with those beautiful people.

Yesterday, a federal grand jury in Brooklyn charged him with racketeering conspiracy, robbery and felony murder. Specifically he was accused of taking part in the Feb. 18, 1993 murder of a Staten Island housewife during a botched home invasion robbery while he was a wannabe mobster under Spero, the Bonanno family's pigeon-loving consigliere. Paciello was also   

Paciello surrendered late yesterday to deputy U.S. Marshals in Miami, said assistant U.S. attorney Jim Walden. Paciello, who faces life if convicted, is scheduled to be arraigned in Miami today.

Walden would not say whether he would seek to jail Paciello without bail to await trial, but if past practice in these federal racketeering cases is a guide, that is most likely what he will do.

Paciello has been arrested numerous times for assault, car theft, grand larceny, criminal mischief but only convicted on reduced charges and served no real jail time.

Neither Paciello, nor his attorney, Roy Black, could be reached for comment.

"I grew up in Brooklyn," Paciello said last year in New York Magazine. "I have lots of friends. It doesn't make me a gangster because I hung out on the corner with people while I was growing up. They're childhood friends of mine, and they will remain friends."

Some of those friends will be at the defense table with him at his trial next year. Some other friends, especially his new ones, may be in court for moral support. You can bet that a couple of friends from the old neighborhood will be in court, too, recounting the good old days from the witness stand.