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A federal grand jury in Brooklyn raised the number of murders that Spero allegedly ordered to four and added an eight-year-long loansharking conspiracy to the racketeering indictment against the 71-year-old Spero.

For good measure, prosecutors Jim Walden and Greg Andres also charged Spero with tampering with witnesses and tried -- unsuccessfully, so far -- to revoke house arrest conditions for Spero that have been in place since last summer. Since then, he has gone out only for legal or medical reasons, which include a three day hospital stay last month.

Conspicuous by his absence from the scheduled pre-trial session was Joseph Calco, (right) the latest hoodlum to turn on Spero and Chris Paciello, the  Miami Beach club owner awaiting trial for the murder of a Staten Island housewife.

Sources said Calco, 32, who was charged with taking part in all four killings listed in the original indictment, secretly pleaded guilty to racketeering and murder charges and has been cooperating since last month.

His name never came up in court, but prosecutors and Spero's lawyer Gerald Shargel referred to Calco (right) during their arguments over Spero's bail status.

The prosecution had "new evidence," said Walden, that during the 1980's Spero had gotten a murder witness to refuse to testify and that recently  

Codefendants Thomas Reynolds (left) and Paciello, whose real name is Ludwigsen, were involved in the latest threats, which were leveled by a captain in another family, Walden said.

For the most part, the new allegations were old and incredible and should be given no weight, said Shargel, arguing that many took place while the witnesses "were in their formative years."

Korman declined to revoke Spero's bail, but the judge ordered him to hire and post a private security guard outside his Staten Island home to insure against witness tampering or other bail violations by Spero. The judge will revisit the issue after both sides file briefs next week.

While Spero's house arrest conditions are strict, they are not quite as severe as Paciello's, which require two security guard to live inside his Staten Island abode. Trial is scheduled for September.

Paciello, who bounced with Madonna and other celebrities in Miami Beach last fall, is charged with a 1992 bank robbery and a 1993 robbery murder as an alleged member of Spero's Bath Avenue Crew.

Spero, a long time power in his Bath Beach, Brooklyn neighborhood, is charged with sending crew members out on four killings from 1987 to 1993, including the murder of a small time burglar who broke into the home of Spero's daughter in 1991.

Pistone, who played the role of wannabe Bonanno mobster Donnie Brasco (right) in real life, was Vito the bartender in several episodes that aired during a nine day stretch over the last two weeks.

"He was in just about every episode, sometimes without any dialog,  sometimes with a few words," said Gang Land regular Lew Galati, a sharp-eyed advertising exec from Manhattan with an eye for detail.

Pistone, 61, could not be reached for comment yesterday but his role as Vito the bartender was confirmed by several sources.

"I can't believe that I'm the only person who noticed it," said Galati, who  thought he recognized Pistone in an early episode, reviewed an old American Justice tape, and nailed it down when the finale aired last week.

"I waited for the credits after the last episode, and there it was, Vito, played by Joseph Dominick Murphy (an obvious alias for Joseph Dominick Pistone.) I guess he felt he needed a stage name, but Murphy?" Galati chuckled.

Pistone, who often used the name "Murphy" after his undercover work ended, also received consulting credit under the same nom-de-plume.

Buscetta, who earned U.S. citizenship by testifying in New York in the 1988 Pizza Connection case against Italian and American mobsters, began cooperating in 1984 after he was arrested in Brazil and returned to Italy. He had fled during a Mafia war in which scores of gangsters, including two of his sons and other relatives, were killed.

"I am a Mafioso," he told top Italian Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, who interviewed Buscetta for 45 days and then used his testimony at maxi trials that featured scores of caged mobsters tried together in Italy's first major offensive against the mob after Mussolini.

In a cooperative effort with the United States, Buscetta was debriefed by federal agents and was a key witness for then-assistant U.S. attorney Louis Freeh against 22 defendants charged with smuggling $1.65 billion of heroin into the U.S. through a network of pizzerias in the Midwest and Northeast.

Buscetta testified about drug conversations he had with with Sicilian Mafia boss Gaetano Badalamenti in Brazil in 1982.  Badalamenti (right) was convicted of heroin trafficking and sentenced to 30 years.

Law enforcement officials in Italy and the United States have long praised Buscetta as a hero. On the mean streets of his home town of Palermo, however, many use the word "buscetta" the same way wiseguys in New York utter the word "rat."