On Aug. 29, 1999, mob associate Kevin Granato became the happiest inmate at the Allenwood Federal Penitentiary complex of prisons in White Deer, Pa.

Granato, now 42, became the proud papa of Gianna, (right at age 2)an eight pound, five ounce baby girl.

Soon after she was born, her mother, Regina, now 39, made a four hour drive from their home in Staten Island to show her to her father.

"That's my little girl," a beaming Granato announced to just about everyone who happened by the new family in the large, open, relaxed visiting room at the low security facility where Granato, who has resided at one federal prison or another since 1987, has lived for years.

"It was mid September; she was two weeks old," said Regina, who began living with Granato in 1981 and whom she married in a jailhouse wedding 16 years later after she began to think seriously about having a child.

The serious thinking, she told Gang Land, began around 1995, after her husband, already doing eight years for dealing drugs with Greg Scarpa Jr., was nailed for extortion, murder conspiracy and more drug charges.

"My age was getting up there. I said, 'Wow, I'm going to be way too old to

have a baby (if I wait until Kevin gets out.)' I said, 'I have to do something. I don’t feel like a woman without a child.'"

Since conjugal visits are off limits at Allenwood, they had to figure out another way. He smuggled his sperm out of the joint and she arranged for a fertility clinic to artificially inseminate her. After a tough pregnancy – gestational diabetes and hemorrhaging kept her bedridden the last two months – she gave birth and knew she had to "drag" herself and Gianna up to Allenwood.

"He was absolutely thrilled,"said Regina, whose husband's convictions for drugs, murder conspiracy and extortion will keep him locked up until 2012. "She's the best thing that ever happened to him," she added.

But in October 2000, mother and daughter, who had been visiting Granato at least once a month, were turned away, and told that Granato was the subject of an investigation and that Warden Susan Gerlinski had decided he would not be allowed visitors until the probe was over..

"Her first birthday was Aug. 29. The last time he saw her was in September. I took her up to see him in her birthday dress. That's the last time they saw each other. She was wearing that dress." (left)

At the time, three correction officers had just been 

Mob boss Vincent (Chin) Gigante's ridiculous crazy act served him well for 30 long years, but the nutball schtick had gotten pretty tired.

Apparently though, after a run rivaling that of ABC-TV's "All My Children," the Genovese boss has decided not to be crazy anymore. This week his new lawyer declined to contest a judge's finding that Gigante was mentally fit to proceed in the case in which he, his son Andrew, and six others await trial on racketeering charges.

When pressed by Brooklyn Federal Judge I. Leo Glasser, attorney Benjamin Brafman confirmed what he essentially indicated two weeks ago, that there would be a change in direction of Gigante's defense.

"We did not raise, and do not raise, Mr. Gigante's competency to proceed," Brafman said at a court session on Tuesday..

Since trial is not likely to take place until next year, Brafman could still raise the issue in the future. But the prevailing wisdom is that Gigante has, indeed, abandoned his timeworn, stumbling, muttering, whacko routine, and will face the charges head on.

Bonanno mobster Joseph Benanti didn't fare too well this week with his argument that he was predisposed to suffer dementia within five years and deserved a break for his murder conviction

After Stern told the judge that a life sentence would force prison officials to place the 67-year-old Benanti in the same type of segregated confinement that Kevin Granato has had for 18 months, Brooklyn Federal Judge Edward Korman, who had first given him to life, reversed himself and sentenced him to 50 years.

Not Really For Idiots
Whether you're a Gang Land regular or an occasional visitor, you'll enjoy  "The Complete Idiot's Guide to The Mafia," a book I wrote for Alpha Books that was published in December. It's filled with real stuff about real wiseguys and insight about the ways that mobsters make their money. It's 343 pages of true stories of life and death, honor and betrayal. Get it at your local book store, or at Gang Land's favorite, Amazon.com, where the powers that be have knocked the price down to $13.27, so low I am concerned that the Godfather of online booksellers has forgotten about my end.