Gambino capo Gene Gotti didn’t give up the life when he was nailed for heroin trafficking 13 years ago.

He lost his crew and was reduced in rank to soldier, but he has played a major role in the crime family’s rackets from federal prison, according to court documents in the labor racketeering case of reputed family boss Peter Gotti.

Gene, 56, is a younger brother of Peter and John Gotti, the late Dapper Don. He has remained a powerful family force through phone calls and jailhouse meetings with Peter and a host of capos, soldiers and associates, the court papers show. 

Since he went to prison – he’s not due out until 2018 – Gene has also retained a lucrative loansharking operation that Peter and other mob associates run for him, using the proceeds to provide for his wife and children, the papers say.

Like Peter and nephew John A. (Junior) Gotti, Gene was held in segregated confinement for three months as authorities investigated reports that members of the Gotti family were part of a plot to murder a warden at the prison where John Gotti died. 

“The Bureau (FBI) and the BOP (Bureau of Prisons) couldn’t find evidence to

make that case, but there is plenty of evidence that Gene has been involved in crime family business for years,” said one law enforcement official.

Gene, the first Gotti brother to become a “made man,” is regarded as a genuine tough guy by the law and his peers and, according to FBI documents, has been involved in several mob rubouts, including the 1988 slaying of soldier Louis Milito, a murder John Gotti was convicted of ordering.

“Gene has the respect of the family, and there even has been talk of him moving up to consigliere, even though he’ll be away a long time,” said another law enforcement source.

According to a 1999 affidavit by FBI agent Betsy Morris, Gene was visited frequently by brother Peter, and many other cohorts, including two mobsters who allegedly took part in the assassination of then-boss Paul Castellano in 1985 – Salvatore (Fat Sally) Scala (right) and Dominick (Skinny Dom) Pizzonia. (left) They often discussed criminal activities involving Gene and the crime family.

Many of Gene’s discussions with Peter were animated and “caustic,” wrote Morris, noting that Gene “would yell at Peter Gotti and attempt to learn what was going on within the Gambino family regarding their various enterprises.”

Until 1999, most insight the feds learned about Gene's activities came from informants because the Gotti crew knew they were being observed by cameras

and placed their hands in front of their mouths when they spoke, or whispered in each other's ears. But in 1999, hidden cameras and more sophisticated bugs picked up allegedly incriminating discussions that the feds are looking to use in the waterfront racketeering case against Peter Gotti and six others that starts next month.

Many of Gene’s phone calls – and visits from Gambino wiseguys – concerned the day-to-day operations of Gene’s half of an unusual joint loansharking operation he shared with Colombo capo Joseph Scopo, a longtime gangster buddy until Scopo (right) was killed in 1993, the last of 12 victims of the bloody Colombo mob war that began in 1991.

Scopo, a hijacking buddy of Gene and John Gotti in the early 1970’s, followed his father into a rival mob family but remained close to the Gottis, maintaining a “loanshark book” with Gene until his murder.

Despite Gene’s incarceration and Scopo’s death, their loanshark business is booming.

When Scopo died, his brother Ralph, a Colombo soldier, took over his brother’s share of the loanshark operation, valued at $500,000 by the affidavit but which sources say today has more than $1 million “on the street” earning from 100 to 200 per cent interest a year.

Robert Santoro, (left) a co-owner of the largest check cashing company in New Jersey, was convicted the other day of laundering a phony $125,000 check for the mob.

Santoro, the latest victim of an FBI sting pulled off with the help of undercover operative Michael D’Urso, was videotaped meeting with Genovese capo Salvatore (Sammy Meatballs) Aparo and overheard chatting with Aparo at a restaurant meeting with much cross talking and discussion that was difficult to discern. In a split verdict, jurors, who saw videos of the men together, convicted him in the phony check caper while acquitting him in a separate charge involving the cashing of a stolen check. 

Santoro, 53, was also found guilty of lying to a grand jury last year when he denied knowing Sammy Meatballs even after he was shown a picture of him that was taken the same day they had met at Florio’s restaurant. Gang Land will resist the urge to comment on that blunder and yield the floor to Aparo’s son Vincent, who gave D’Urso his opinion about Santoro's testimony before the grand jury.

"He’s gotta be a fucking moron to say that," said Aparo. "I mean, they had surveillance pictures here every day… Because if they’re gonna ask you something like that, you better know they got a picture of you."

Up to and including Santoro’s trial, no defendant indicted as a result of D’Urso’s undercover work had beaten the case, including five Santoro codefendants in the phony check scheme who pleaded guilty – soldier Peter (Petey Red) DiChiara, associate Frank Schwamborn, lawyer Daniel Grossman, and the Aparos. According to Gang Land’s quick and dirty count, 44 defendants have been convicted.

The streak ended last week. Federal prosecutors Paul Weinstein, Paul Schoeman and Dan Dorsky dismissed racketeering and loansharking charges against Genovese capo and onetime acting family boss, Frank (Farby) Serpico, (right) who died of cancer after a long illness, at age 58.

Now that Thanksgiving Day has come and gone – we hope the turkey and trimmings were great and that a Happy Thanksgiving was had by all – here are  a couple of books that Gang Land readers might like to give as gifts during the holiday season. (Some habits die slow. For Gang Land, the holiday gift-giving season begins with Santa's arrival at Macy's in New York's Herald Square.)

Since we have pushed our own all year, we'll resist the urge to recommend them again (although, of course, they would make great stocking stuffers) and mention a couple of others we enjoyed. You can get them at your local bookstore, or Gang Land's favorite, Amazon.com.

"The Wiseguy Cookbook," By Henry Hill and Priscilla Davis is an entertaining and informative read. It's everything you wanted to know about Hill's rituals and recipes for cooking that he learned from his mother, as well as the innovative culinary skills he picked up along the way, whether it was doing time or laying low in the Witness Protection Program.

His mom's Italian heritage couldn't get him made, but the mob couldn't keep him out of her kitchen. She taught him well, although every so often he found a better way. Like with cutlets, for example. This applies to veal, chicken, pork. Eggplant too. His mom dipped them in egg and then in flour and breadcrumbs before frying.

According to Henry, the opposite way, flour and breadcrumbs first, then egg, makes for more mellow cutlets. Also, with his mom's way, "some of the breadcrumbs always fall into the oil and burn, so you have to start over with a new batch of oil after a couple of rounds of frying."

Sprinkled among staples like Pasta e Lenticchie (lentils) and Pasta con Sarde (sardines) are plenty of anecdotes about wiseguys like Paul Vario and Jimmy The Gent Burke, cooking in the Army, and in prison. And for Gang Land readers living in the heartland, Hill tells how to improvise and use substitute ingredients. From his days in the witness program, Hill knows how difficult it is to find arugula, let alone people who know what it is, in places like Omaha, Nebraska and Butte, Montana.

"Brooklyn: A State of Mind," edited by Michael W. Robbins & designed by Wendy Palitz, is a must read for anyone who was born or raised in Brooklyn, or spent a few years there, or, like the rest of the world, wishes they were.

Published last year, the book is a collection of 125 original stories and a gazillion photos that bring to life people and places that have shaped the Borough of Churches over the last 100 years. Words and pictures of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Norman Mailer, Carmine Persico, Nathan's Famous, Jackie Gleason, Jackie Robinson, the Brooklyn Paramount, Abe Reles and the Half Moon Hotel, the Poet Laureate of Brooklyn. Interviews of Mel Brooks, Leonard Garment and Spike Lee. And much more.

Of special interest to mob buffs, and Gang Land, is a joint interview of Brooklyn Federal Court Judges I. Leo Glasser and John Gleeson about the 1992 trial of John Gotti. Glasser, the trial judge, and Gleeson, the lead prosecutor, were interviewed – the only out-of-court comments they have uttered – in 1999, a year before star witness Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano was arrested for drug dealing, charges for which he is doing 20 years.

While neither judge said anything outrageous, even in hindsight, Gang Land is sure each wishes they had declined to discuss the case. For example, Gleeson, who was less restrained in his remarks than Glasser, described Gravano as "the best witness of all time .... He looked evil. Then Sammy flipped and I spent a great deal of time with him. Literally hundreds of hours. I got to know him well. I laughed with him. He was smart, engaging and funny."

Glasser, asked to describe the kind of man Gravano was, never gave his view, noting only that jurors and investigators had "found him sincere when he said he was attempting to put the life of organized crime behind him."

Asked about criticism that his five year sentence was too lenient, Glasser acknowledged, " I took a beating for that." But he ducked the real issue, never explaining how he justified it in his mind. Instead, he blamed the media for not  publishing the sentencing memo he had "worked many hours preparing."

Glasser loosened up, however, when asked if there were "occasions for wit" in the Gotti trial. Often described as a grouch or curmudgeon, his response indicates he may also have loosened up at least once during the very tense trial.

"I suppose I had to use my wits one day when I received a note that some of the jurors, who'd been sequestered for weeks, were requesting conjugal visits. I called the only other federal judge I knew who had sequestered a jury. He said, 'What are you going to do, judge?' I said, 'I think I'll allow it.' He said, 'Good for you. I think that's what I would do.'"

Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti

The complete saga of John Gotti, from his treacherous rise to his defiant downfall, is here – Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti – the book it took yours truly and Gene Mustain 17 years to do! Although we didn't know it at the time, we began working on "Mob Star" in 1985, when we began covering the Gotti story as news reporters.

The first edition came out in 1988, and we finished this new edition three days before Gotti died in June. We added a postscript, and Alpha Books has distributed it to the nation's bookstores.

With a 40,000-word update, the new edition contains the entire Gotti saga right up to his time in prison and his death from throat cancer.

The 378 page, full-size book uses eight additional chapters, a prologue and an epilogue to complete the story we began telling (better than any other reporters, we might add!) when we covered the Gotti-orchestrated, midtown Manhattan assassination of former Gambino boss Paul Castellano.

For the last and best words on Gotti, this is the book to have. It is specially priced at Amazon.com at $11.87, more than five bucks off the suggested retail price.

    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.