Last week, like all but a tragic few of 50 million Americans, Mafia bosses Joseph Massino and Peter Gotti survived the great blackout of 2003. The old neighbors from Howard Beach, Queens were holed up in new digs at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn when the lights went out and came back on in due time.

But the future suddenly looks darker yet for Massino, (right) the 60-year-old boss of the Bonanno brood, and Gotti, the 63-year-old leader of the Gambino gang. They face the very real prospect of never seeing the light of a free day again.

Massino, already awaiting trial for two 20-year-old mob rubouts that grew out of the FBI’s infiltration of the Bonanno family a quarter century ago, was hit yesterday with three more murders, courtesy of insight the feds got from six Bonanno defectors, including Massino’s brother-in-law and former underboss, Salvatore Vitale.

Gotti, found guilty of labor racketeering and awaiting sentencing by a federal judge with a reputation for leniency, now faces another trial for racketeering and murder conspiracy. Indicted Monday, Gotti is charged with plotting to kill turncoat underboss Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano. And the judge in the new case has a decidedly pro-government reputation. Sources say turncoat capo Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo is Gotti’s Achilles heel.

“These charges are a stunning disappointment,” said Gotti’s lawyer Gerald

Shargel. “Once again, it seems Peter (left) is being used as a marquee name, added as the lead defendant to an indictment that has been pending more than a year.”

In yesterday's developments, Massino was indicted in two slayings that are linked to the spectacular 1979 rubout of then-Bonanno boss Carmine (Lilo) Galante –whacked as he dined on the backyard patio of Joe and Mary’s Italian Restaurant in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Massino is charged with the 1984 murder of Cesare Bonventre, a Galante bodyguard who was part of the Galante plot, and the 1987 slaying of soldier Gabriel Infante. Among other things, sources said, Infante was killed for botching the Bonventre slaying by failing to properly dispose of his body. Bonventre’s body was recovered in a 55-gallon drum in New Jersey in April 1984.

As if those new charges weren’t bad enough, Massino was also accused in a separate indictment with a 1999 murder for which he could ultimately face the death penalty, the execution of Sicilian-born capo Gerlando Sciascia. If the feds seek capital punishment for that murder, Massino would become the first Mafia boss to earn that distinction. 

Sciascia, 65, a rich heroin dealer who moved to the Big Apple in 1997 when he was deported from Canada as a public menace, was found shot to death on Mar. 18, 1999, his body dumped on a dead-end street in The Bronx. At his wake, scores of wiseguys paid their respects, and the killing was long thought to have been an unsanctioned “sneak job.”

Not so, according to court papers filed by assistant U.S. attorneys Greg Andres, Mitra Hormozi and Nicolas Bourtin. They allege that Massino ordered the killing, for which capo Patrick DeFilippo, 64, and soldier John Joseph Spirito, 44, were

arrested yesterday and detained without bail.

“Patty From The Bronx” and “Johnny Joe” whacked “George From Canada” because the old-line Sicilian gangster (right) had the temerity to complain to Massino that one of his favored capos, Anthony Graziano, was a coke fiend, the prosecutors wrote.

“We had nothing to do with the first two murders, we have nothing to do with these,” said Massino’s lawyer David Breitbart. “We were ready for trial months ago; we’re ready for trial now.”

As for Gotti, after a few years of enjoying the influence that became his when he was drafted to replace nephew Junior Gotti as a stand-in for John Gotti, he now faces, if convicted in the new case,  the same fate as his brother – dying in the can. 

Surely, sources say, the former sanitation worker regrets the day he agreed to become a “made guy” in 1986 and help his younger brother run the Gambino family while the Dapper Don was himself jailed and awaiting trial on murder and racketeering charges he eventually beat (after paying $60,000 or so to a juror, it later turned out.)

“Pete was made so he could serve as a messenger between John and his troops back then,” said one law enforcement official, explaining that as a relative then-without a criminal record, Peter was permitted to visit his brother at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

“And Pete used to drive the real wiseguys crazy,” said the official, laughing as he recalled that on more than one occasion during Peter Gotti’s early mob

career, he had to visit his brother twice to get the message straight.

After one session at the MCC, Pete traveled to Brooklyn to meet a capo prohibited from visiting the Dapper Don. (left) After delivering greetings from his brother, and exchanging small talk, Peter got to the heart of the matter, said the official.

“My brother says, uh, uh, oh shit, I’ll get back to you,” said Peter, recounted the official.

By the fall of 1999, however, Peter was much better at carrying messages for his jailed brother. Sources said that after a visit at the prison hospital where John Gotti would die of cancer last year, Peter allegedly dispatched a hit team to Arizona to pay its respects to Sammy Bull, who was living openly in the Valley State and virtually daring the mob to try and get him.

The plot petered out in February, 2000, when Gravano was arrested on drug charges. But according to court papers filed by prosecutors Michael McGovern, John Hillebrecht and Joon Kim, the murder plot lasted three more months as Gambino soldiers Thomas (Huck) Carbonaro and Edward Garafola, a Gravano brother-in-law, tried but failed to get their man.

Gravano, of course, is now in prison, probably until his lights go out for good too.