Robert Misseri was jailed last spring after a witness fingered him as one of the killers of a hoodlum found shot to death and stuffed into a small plastic tool box in 1994. The witness has since said he made it all up and Misseri was back home in time for the holidays.

Another witness who identified Misseri as a mob associate had a change of heart earlier. Coupled with the fact that Misseri passed a lie detector test by a noted polygraph expert, a federal judge is "seriously considering" throwing out the charges against Misseri.

The prosecutors aren't so convinced, contending that Misseri is co-leader of a mob crew under Franzese (that's a 40-year-old picture at right) and that their witness, Peter Pistone, changed his tune after being threatened. They don't explain how Misseri could pass a lie detector test administered by Paul Minor, a retired former FBI chief polygraphist who continues to work for the FBI and many city, county and state governments. Or why they wouldn't let Pistone submit to a polygraph exam by Minor.

Misseri, 31, was with Franzese in 1996 when he was busted for violating

But Misseri's lawyer, Alan Futerfas, said his client's interests with Franzese were cultural, not criminal. "For some time, Robert was arranging a deal for Mr. Franzese's story with a major motion picture studio," he said. "Tina, Mr. Franzese's wife, had an option for the movie rights to her story and Robert was shopping a book deal for her."

Misseri's troubles began a year ago when he and the reputed co-leader of Franzese's crew, Saverio (Sammy) Galasso III, were hit with fraud charges for ripping off $876,000 from investors who bought payphones and routes that didn't exist.

A few months later, prosecutors upped the ante. Misseri and Pistone's brother, Joseph (Joe Baldy) Pistone, were indicted for the execution murder of mob associate Louis Dorval as all four men rode in a car in August, 1994. At a detention hearing, prosecutors alleged that Joe Baldy fired the fatal shots; that he and Misseri stuffed Dorval in a "Tuff-Bin tool box" and that the Pistone brothers dumped him into the Atlantic on Long Island's south shore. Misseri was held without bail.

In June, he passed a lie detector test, truthfully answering, "No"to four questions: Did you shoot Louis Dorval? Were you at the scene when Dorval

Futerfas filed Minor's findings, and sent them, along with the charts and readings of the test, to prosecutors Gary Brown and James Miskiewicz, pressing them to question their witness again, and to give him a lie detector test.

Meanwhile, another witness recanted his grand jury testimony about Misseri's mob ties and Futerfas received 1994 FBI reports that named two others as the killers.

A few days before Thanksgiving, according to a letter they wrote Long Island Federal Judge Arthur Spatt, prosecutors finally confronted Peter Pistone and he "recanted, stating that Misseri was not present for the homicide, and that Pistone did not know whether Misseri had prior knowledge of the homicide."

On Thanksgiving Eve, Misseri was released on bail.

At a Dec. 26 hearing, Spatt questioned the government's case, giving Miskiewicz, who charged that Pistone's recant was a "product of coercion," until next week to respond to the motion to dismiss the arson and murder charges against Misseri.

"Robert was framed by two witnesses, who have since recanted. It would be a travesty of justice if he were made to stand trial on charges for which there is no evidence against him," said Futerfas.

Federal Judge Denis Hurley didn't come close to buying that specious story and refused to dismiss charges that Avellino, 64, used attempted murder and arson to control Long Island's lucrative private garbage hauling industry for 15 years.

In a 21-page decision, Hurley took care not to use words like "lie" or "hoax" to describe lawyers Larry Bronson, Jay Goldberg and Brian Linder or their assertion that the late prosecutor Charles Rose (left) promised them that Avellino would not be prosecuted for all his prior crimes in return for a guilty plea. Because of the supposed secret agreement, the lawyers argued, Avellino should not have to face the new racketeering charges.

Hurley noted that Goldberg and Linder both testified that they had never heard of a case in which a lawyer was promised immunity for "a client that extended to crimes unknown to the government."And Bronson's testimony that Rose had secretly told Judge Eugene Nickerson of the promise was "afforded no weight by me" and that the "accuracy of his recollection" about another point was "seemingly compromised" by a phone call he later made to prosecutor Rose.

"As the trier of fact," he wrote, "I find that (former prosecutor Gregory) O'Connell's recollection of what transpired during plea negotiations is correct. Neither he nor Rose indicated to a member of the defense team

Hurley noted that last year, at a special session with Justice Department officials in Washington, Goldberg and Linder never mentioned any secret promises made during Avellino's plea negotiations. "The defense's failure to mention the purported promises made by O'Connell and Rose during the meeting in Washington, D.C., or in their initial papers in support of the present motion, indicates that their belief that such promises were made did not surface until after" they had returned to New York, Hurley wrote.

"Those circumstances," Hurley wrote, "coupled with, inter alia (among other things), the dubious reliability of essentially unaided recollection after so many years, convinces me that the testimony of Messrs. Linder, Bronson and Goldberg, though I assume honestly given, is simply wrong. Their testimony, unlike O'Connell's, is wholly out of sync with the other, more reliable evidence in the case."

Avellino, (right) whose current 10 year sentence ends next year, is scheduled for trial in March along with his son Michael, son-in-law Michael Malena, and five others.

Gang Land won't be surprised if Avellino & Co. plead guilty again, even though it would keep the "retired" gangster off the links in sunny Florida -- his stated goal in life these days -- for a few more years.

But Gravano, a turncoat underboss who later helped the feds bring down Gotti, the juror, and a host of others, returns to Brooklyn Federal Court as a hero to no one -- a blood sucking pariah to the mob, the feds, and the relatives of 19 men he helped kill during his two decades as a gangster.

Gravano, who has been jailed in Arizona for 11 months as the alleged head of an Ecstasy drug ring that made $500,000 a week, is charged in Brooklyn with buying 40,000 pills from New York dealers for distribution in Arizona from 1998 until 2000.

Sammy Bull, whose son Gerard (Baby Bull) Gravano pleaded innocent to similar charges last week, is expected to do the same and be returned to Arizona, where he awaits trial with Gerard, daughter Karen and wife Debra.