Like lots of people from all walks of life, John Micali has good reason to regret a tattoo he got many years ago that probably seemed like such a swell idea at the time. 

The artwork in question fills his upper back. It is a powerful portrait of a suave, nattily-dressed man pointing a gun at the head of a beaten, handcuffed victim kneeling on a cobblestone street under a lamppost. 

The drawing shows the victim with his hands behind his back, his head bowed, preparing to die. The Sicilian words that frame the kneeling man are: “Ammazza a tutti i Sbirri Cu Na Pistuta NA Testa.” According to the FBI, the English translation is: “Kill all the police with a shot in the head.”

“The depiction reveals a new era of American gangsters, ones who obviously subscribe to the old world ways of killing police and prosecutors that plagued Italy for decades,” said one law enforcement official about Micali and eight other members of a violent bank burglary ring that was hit with racketeering charges six weeks ago.

“They used guns, baseball bats, hammers, anything and everything they could to get what they wanted” as they tried to impress wiseguys from the Gambino, Bonanno and Colombo families that they were worthy of becoming “made men,” said the official.

“It’s certainly not your normal Mafia mentality,” said N.G. Berrill, a Forensic

Psychologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “He needs to demonstrate his bravado or machismo in a very graphic way. For him, it’s not sufficient that he develop his reputation based on deed; he needs to splash a billboard on his back.”

Berrill, who does profiling work for the Justice Department, told Gang Land the tattoo “reminds me a lot more of a biker slogan, or a neo-Nazi, neo-fascist kind of mentality. What it says is that I am at war with the police.”

Micali, 30, (left) has been detained as a danger to the community since his indictment six weeks ago as a ringleader of the coast-to-coast bank burglary gang. At the time, federal prosecutor Joey Lipton introduced evidence that Micali was a violent drug dealer who was part of a plot to kill mob turncoat Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano three years ago.

According to court records, Micali took part in 14 successful bank burglaries and nine failed bank jobs from 1996 to 2000 as a principal organizer of the Night Drop Crew that specialized in ripping night deposit boxes from banks from New York to Las Vegas.

During many heists, Micali was on federal supervised release stemming from a 30 month rap for coke trafficking, twice getting arrested and sent back to jail, according to court papers. In 1997, he served eight months for possessing drugs;

in 2000, he received nine more months when he was caught in Tennessee with crew members setting up a heist.

Even without any specific allegations of violence against him, does Micali’s tattoo alone, setting squarely between his shoulders and depicting an execution of a police officer, brand Micali as a danger to society?

“Absolutely not,” said Micali’s attorney, Anthony Lombardino.

“He got the tattoo ten years ago. He was a dopey kid when he did it. He’s turned his life around since then,” said Lombardino who also disputes the FBI translation of the Sicilian words, saying that they do not espouse the killing of police.

“The Italian word for police is not there. Sbirri is a Sicilian word that means someone who is untrustworthy, not necessarily police,” said Lombardino.

Last week, Lombardino, citing the reasons he provided Gang Land, asked Brooklyn Federal Judge Sterling Johnson (right) to grant Micali $3 million bail under strict house arrest conditions for two weeks in December to allow him to marry his fiancé – Lori Daidone, daughter of acting Luchese boss Louis (Louie Crossbay) Daidone.

Originally planned for Oct. 10 – and postponed on account of arrest – the wedding was rescheduled for

Dec. 21. All the arrangements, including wedding favors, the rehearsal dinner and gifts for the bridal party have been paid for, wrote Lori, begging Johnson to make her lifelong dreams come true.

“I have dreamed of this day since I was a little girl,” she wrote. “I’m really a good person. I’ve spent my life caring for children and hope to be a mother myself one day. None of this is possible without you. Please, please, please, don’t take my dreams away.”

Prosecutor Lipton objected, suggesting the happy couple petition the Bureau of Prisons to allow them to exchange their marriage vows in prison because Micali’s long criminal record and his propensity for violence certified him as a danger to society.

Also, Lipton reminded Johnson, Micali has a “tattoo covering the length of (his) back depicting a man on his knees with his hands bound behind his back being shot execution-style in the back of the head, with the inscription in Italian: ‘Kill all the police with a shot in the head.’”

As expected, Johnson, a former New York City Special Narcotics Prosecutor, turned a deaf ear to the defendant’s request.

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