For the first time in three tries, federal prosecutors convinced 12 jurors that John (Junior) Gotti ordered the kidnap-shooting of talk show host Curtis Sliwa, but yesterday’s mistrial was a sweet victory for the Junior Don.

He walked out of court believing that this was the government’s last shot and that the feds would not bring him to trial for a fourth time, according to a knowledgeable Gang Land source.

He’s probably right, a well-placed law enforcement official said, even though a “disappointed” U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, in a brief statement he released after the mistrial was declared, left open the possibility that his office would seek to bring Gotti to trial a fourth time.

“The chances are slim and none that they’ll do it again,” the official told Gang Land.

Junior couldn’t agree more. “It’s enough now. They got to let go,” a smiling Gotti said as he told of his plans to enjoy a quiet life with his wife and six children, perhaps in the Midwest.

“If they let us alone, I’ll leave. I’ll take my family and go,” he said after Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin declared a mistrial in the seventh day of deliberations in his third racketeering trial stemming from the brutal 1992 assault of Sliwa.

Junior said he might even go back to college.

Jurors who spoke to reporters later said the jury had agreed that Gotti was responsible for ordering the shooting of Sliwa in June 1992, as well as an earlier attack when three hoods beat him with baseball bats.

However, sources told Gang Land, four of the 12 jurors believed the arguments by lead defense attorney Charles Carnesi that Junior had quit the mob in 1999, leaving them unable to convict him of racketeering charges because they did not believe that he committed any crimes after 1999.

In order to find him guilty of racketeering, prosecutors had to prove that he committed at least one crime, known as a predicate act, in the five-year period before the indictment was filed, in 2004.  

As the feds’ case against the Junior Don died a slow death in Manhattan, echoes of the bloodiest mob war in recent history – the Colombo family feud that left 12 dead from 1991 through 1993 – reverberated throughout the Brooklyn court system.

In federal court, acting boss Alphonse (Allie) Persico (right) began trial for the 1999 murder of William (Wild Bill) Cutolo, the charismatic leader of the rebel dissidents who launched a shooting war aimed at toppling Persico and his jailed-for-life father, Carmine (Junior) Persico, the official family boss.

The younger Persico isn’t the only one still haunted by the old war. State prosecutors are moving forward with their own murder indictment against R. Lindley DeVecchio, a retired FBI supervisor who allegedly provided invaluable wartime help to the Persico group’s top gun during the bloodletting, capo Gregory Scarpa. The prosecution has sparked outspoken opposition by many of the nation’s top FBI agents who have a formed a defense committee and launched a website blasting the charges.

On the first day of the federal case against Persico, prosecutors quickly established a motive for the killing of Cutolo, whose body has never been found. Anthony Rotondo, a DeCavalcante capo turned government informer, told of numerous dealings and meetings he had with Wild Bill and his crew members before, during and after the war.

Rotondo testified that he heard Cutolo (left) refer to the elder Persico as a “rat” for admitting the existence of the Mafia during the historic 1985 Commission case.

The witness also described Wild Bill as a Brooklyn-based “tough guy” who headed a murderous crew that killed several Persico loyalists in the 1990s conflict.

The Brooklyn-born Rotondo said his family followed the lead of late Gambino boss John Gotti and supported

Cutolo’s faction, headed by Victor (Little Vic) Orena. During the war, he said, he often met with Cutolo and others at various places in Brooklyn for news about the conflict and to stay abreast of several rackets his family shared with Cutolo and his crew.

Under questioning by assistant U.S. attorney Katya Jestin, he also related that Wild Bill Bill had predicted his own demise in 1998 soon after he was elevated from capo to underboss and Rotondo (right) saw him “strutting around like a rooster.”

The forecast came after Alphonse Persico had asked the new underboss for an accounting of all his money-making rackets, Rotondo testified, recalling that when Wild Bill related the story, he added: “You know what’s happening next.”

Prompted by Jestin to explain his understanding of that last remark, Rotondo said: “Billy wouldn’t be around too long.”

In the government’s opening remarks, co-prosecutor Deborah Mayer had told jurors that less than 24 hours after Cutolo disappeared, Persico, 52, and his replacement underboss, co-defendant John (Jackie) DeRoss, 69, took over Cutolo’s rackets and began hunting for his cash.

In the state case stemming from the Colombo war, the Brooklyn District Attorney claims that DeVecchio became such a partisan for Persico’s top gunman that

he helped him commit four murders between 1984 and 1992. To make its case, the DA’s office indicated in court papers last week that it plans to use allegations of wrongdoing that were lodged against DeVecchio (left) a decade ago by FBI agents and federal prosecutors.

DeVecchio’s attorneys are seeking to move the case into federal court, which they feel is a more sympathetic venue. The rules in both systems have provisions, however, that allow prosecutors to introduce evidence that, while not specifically related to a charge, tends to show that a defendant committed acts similar to the allegations in the indictment.

Regardless where the case is heard, the defense is ready, said DeVecchio’s lawyer, Mark Bederow. “We’re focused on preparing a vigorous defense for Lin, who is innocent of all of these allegations.”

In its filing, assistant district attorney Noel Downey pressed a request for two documents that detail critical statements by a former federal prosecutor during a two-year long FBI inquiry into DeVecchio’s dealings with Scarpa, who was a top echelon informer for the agent for 12 years.

In a five page letter, Downey ripped the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s office for refusing to comply with a subpoena for the material, saying that Downey had failed to show, as federal regulations require, how it was relevant to his case.

Downey said the documents are relevant because they detail a “clear pattern of criminal conduct between DeVecchio and Scarpa” during the same time frame that the ex-agent and his informer allegedly committed four murders together. DeVecchio is charged with providing Scarpa with information about the four victims, including one woman, that he knew the gangster would kill.

The DA’s letter prompted an angry retort by assistant U.S. attorney Gail Matthews who wrote that his remarks were “inappropriate” in light of the reams of material

her office had provided in the past year. She said her office had already provided the DA’s office with 2020 pages of materials and much other help – including access to numerous witnesses. She said that her office had not yet located one 12-year-old document, but had long ago turned over the other – a 1995 FBI report of an interview of a former mob prosecutor – with what she said were only “minor redactions.”

Indeed, the redacted version contains nine allegations of wrongdoing by DeVecchio, including that he was overheard by a fellow agent telling Scarpa (right) that crew member Carmine Imbriale was cooperating on February 27, 1992, a few hours after he began talking to the feds, according to a copy obtained by Gang Land.

This accusation was corroborated, according to the six-page report by agents Patrick Welch and Richard Lambert, by two Scarpa crew members who later cooperated and reported being told by Scarpa that “Imbriale had to be killed because he was a ‘rat.’”

In any event, wrote prosecutor Matthews, now that Downey has given reasons why the documents are relevant, the feds are reconsidering his request, and are searching for the still-missing document, a letter that then-prosecutor Ellen Corcella wrote to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility about the DeVecchio-Scarpa relationship.

Gang Land won’t presume to tell prosecutors how to conduct their business, but both Matthews and Downey might want to reach out to Corcella, now in private practice in Indianapolis.

She declined to provide a copy of her letter to Gang Land, which has no subpoena power, but noted wryly that neither office has contacted her about her letter: “If I am subpoenaed I would honor it, unless there’s an appropriate motion to quash,” she said.

Mobsters have long been fans of big screen portrayals of wiseguys by superstar actors like Marlon Brando, Jimmy Cagney, Robert DeNiro and Edward G. Robinson, among others.

During his testimony at Persico’s trial, Rotondo disclosed that his “godfather,” a now-deceased DeCavalcante capo named Rudy Farone, acquired a most-unusual nickname based on a character played by Dustin Hoffman, who starred as a cross-dressing actor in the title role of the 1982 romantic-comedy, “Tootsie.”

“He killed a few people while dressed as a woman,” said Rotondo.

   The Last Godfather, The Book
“You must be Kimberly and you must be Jeffrey,” cracked Joe Massino on his last day as a free man after a 10 year run as boss of New York's Bonanno crime family. The Last Don was sitting in a government car on January 8, 2003 with two young, preppy-looking FBI agents with accounting degrees who had just nailed him on racketeering and murder charges that would ultimately lead him to become the first New York Mafia Boss to cooperate with the feds. 

The anecdote in which Massino lets FBI agents Kim McCaffrey and Jeff Sallet know that he also knows who they are appears in the first chapter of “The Last Godfather,” by Anthony DeStefano, the last word, and best work, on the life and times of Joe Massino. DeStefano begins his telling book with Massino’s arrest and ends it with the defrocked wiseguy shuffling out of court with federal marshals to begin a career as a stool pigeon on June 23, 2005, his eyes “cold, gray and dead as gunmetal.” 

As a foundation for “The Last Godfather,” the author draws from three decades of testimony and court records, including a 1977 appearance on the witness stand when the burly gangster talked his way out of a hijacking arrest. DeStefano, a veteran New York Newsday reporter, brings the story to life through interviews with a gaggle of law enforcement officials who pursued Massino over the years. DeStefano adds special insight into Massino through interviews with his wife Josephine and daughters Joanne and Adeline.

Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti

Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti – the book it took yours truly and Gene Mustain 17 years to do – tells the complete saga of John Gotti, from his treacherous rise to his defiant downfall. 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 2002. We added a postscript, and 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 $11.02, more than five bucks off the suggested retail price.

The best of Gang Land is available in a book store near you. Or you can pick up a copy of "JERRY CAPECI'S Gang Land: Fifteen Years Of Covering The Mafia" at a special low price from the Godfather of online booksellers, Amazon.com.

The 330-page oversized book includes an index and eight pages of photographs. It is sure to contain a few of your favorite columns, as well as some you may have missed during Gang Land's lengthy run that began in 1989 in The New York Daily News and continues today online and in The New York Sun.

The book's 125 columns chronicle the New York Mafia landscape from John Gotti's heyday in 1989 as the swashbuckling Dapper Don to the remarkable day in 2003 when Gotti's longtime rival Vincent (Chin) Gigante gave up his Daffy Don routine and confessed to having put on a crazy act for three decades.

Amazon.com has it in stock for $12.32  – 35% off the $18.95 list price.