Late last year, FBI agents made a surprise visit to scam artist James Labate (right) at a federal prison in Elkton, Ohio. The mob associate, who was at the apex of the largest stock fraud case in U.S. history, told them in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t going to cooperate.

Labate had helped convict himself and his mob superior, Bonanno capo Robert (Little Robert) Lino – along with more than 100 others – of federal crimes in a $50 million stock scam through his own words that were picked up by a bug the FBI had placed in his Manhattan brokerage in 1999. Labate sternly told the agents he was no stool pigeon.

But if he wasn’t about to squeal, that didn’t mean he couldn’t provide some assistance. In short order, Labate helped unravel a baffling mystery surrounding the brutal 1992 murder of Robert Perrino, a New York Post delivery superintendent whose remains were unearthed in December from a shallow Staten Island grave, Gang Land has learned.

The feds say Perrino, a Bonanno associate involved in labor racketeering schemes at The Post – several wiseguys and their relatives had no-show jobs at the paper – was killed by mob cohorts who feared he might cooperate in a pending investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Perrino’s penchant for braggadocio and badmouthing his mob associates, as evidenced by a bug in his office, didn’t help his cause.

According to sources on both sides of the law, Labate believes he somehow managed to lead authorities to Perrino’s makeshift grave without implicating himself or any Bonanno wiseguys in the murder, except for turncoats who

fingered him to the FBI. While the mob is surely upset with Labate’s actions, his transgressions are certainly less damaging than those of a host of Bonanno traitors who have painted a pretty clear picture of Perrino’s demise. 

In many ways, the strides authorities have taken in solving Perrino’s murder mirror the incredible inroads the FBI has made into the Bonanno family. Eighteen months ago, some four decades after Genovese soldier Joe Valachi became the first mobster to publicly break his Mafia oath of allegiance, the Bonannos were the only New York family without a cooperating witness among its “made men.” Today, there are known defections by eight inducted family members.

Last week, sources said, Frank Ambrosino would have become the ninth “made man” to defect, but for the fact that he had declined an invitation to join the family. Instead, Ambrosino, 38, became the fourth member of the Perrino hit team to cooperate. Four others, including Lino, (left) await trial for the murder.

A close friend of capo Little Robert – each is godfather to a child of the other – he was removed from general population of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn last week, and his family has disappeared, according to defense lawyers in two cases in which Perrino’s murder is one of the charges.

Ambrosino, who was on the cleanup team that scrubbed down the Brooklyn social club where Perrino was slain, also helped transport his body across the Verrazano Bridge for burial. He joins onetime underboss Salvatore Vitale and former capos Richard (Shellackhead) Cantarella (right) and Frank (Curly) Lino as other plotters who are cooperating with the feds.

According to court papers, on May 5, 1992, soldier Michael (Mickey Bats) Cardello accompanied Perrino

to a social club in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn – his car was later recovered nearby with a parking ticket on the windshield – for what Perrino was led to believe was an important meeting.

When they arrived, soldier Baldassare (Baldo) Amato shot Perrino, and left immediately with Cardello. Then capo Frank Lino (left) was notified and sent over a three man “cleanup team” – his cousin Little Robert Lino, Ambrosino and associate Anthony Basile, (right) whose social club was the murder scene, according to court papers.

Minutes later, the papers state, the trio was shocked to find that Perrino was “still alive,” making it necessary for a member of the cleanup team to stab Perrino to death.

Later, according to court papers filed by assistant U.S. attorneys Mitra Hormozi, Robert Henoch, Nicolas Bourtin and Greg Andres, capo Frank Lino would tell Vitale, who had selected Amato: “Tell the guy that did the shooting to make sure that next time that the victim was dead.”

After wrapping the body in a carpet, they drove the corpse to a commercial property at 98 Jewett Ave. in the Port Richmond section of Staten Island where Labate then operated a construction business, and buried Perrino.

Even in death, though, Perrino gave the Bonannos fits. First, sources said, one of his limbs rose out of the ground and his grave had to be dug deeper. A few

years later, sources said, after Basile was nabbed for drug dealing, mob higher-ups feared he might cooperate and the remains were moved to the location where they were retrieved on Dec. 12.

Trial for Basile, 33, Amato, 51, (left) and Cardello, 62, all indicted two months ago, is many months away. Robert Lino, 37, is scheduled for trial next month for two mob hits, including Perrino’s murder, but prison sources say that Ambrosino’s defection has Lino leaning towards a negotiated plea deal that will cost him between 27 and 30 years.

If Lino cops a plea, and sources say that could happen as early as this week, that will leave Bonanno boss Joseph Massino, who is charged with seven murders from 1981 to 1987, as the sole remaining defendant in a massive racketeering indictment that has resulted in more than 30 convictions since it was first handed up in March 2002.

On Monday, Ronald (Monkey Man) Filocomo (right) pleaded guilty to two murders, including one Massino is charged with, the 1981 execution of capo Dominick (Sonny Black) Napolitano, who was killed for allowing then-FBI agent Joe Pistone to infiltrate the crime family a quarter century ago. Filocomo, 53, faces 30 years to life.

Two weeks ago, solder Daniel (DeDe) Mongelli, 37, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges that included the 1990 murder of mob associate Louis Tuzzio, for which he faces 24 to 30 years when he is sentenced by Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis.

This week on The Sopranos, an angry federal prosecutor named Castleman ripped FBI agents over their inability to learn how Uncle Junior Soprano fixed his racketeering case. But TV viewers only know the half of it.  

In real life, actor Castleman is Daniel Castleman, a top prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. And Castleman is really steamed over a "slap on the wrist" 2-to-6 year sentence Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Atlas just gave acting Luchese boss Steven Crea for his state labor racketeering conviction. Tom Robbins has the full story of Castleman's real life anger in this week's Village Voice.