The Associated Press moved a story out of Washington last week that attempted to conjure up fears that greedy New York wiseguys might peddle weapons of mass destruction to followers of Osama bin Laden looking to launch terrorist attacks on American soil. 

Dated October 1, it ran under a scary headline, “Feds worry that terrorists, mobsters might collaborate.” Its impact however, was that of a report that was either six months late, or six months early, one dated April 1 – April Fools Day. 

Six knowledgeable Gang Land sources on both sides of the law all agreed that the story was hogwash, with only a couple expressing the caveat that “anything is possible.”

Even though it’s been well established that mobsters live to make money anyway they can, New York FBI spokesman Jim Margolin said that in the five years since 9-11, the FBI has uncovered “no evidence of any links between the mob and international terrorist groups.”

Edward McDonald, a former chief of the federal Organized Crime Strike Force, said: “I don’t see any of the five families authorizing anything like what is being suggested – no matter how desperate they become. As a practical matter, they would consider any involvement with terrorists too risky, given all the government heat on terrorism and a fear that terrorists could not be trusted.”

Two totally diverse sources – a son of an incarcerated mobster, who noted that Lucky Luciano helped the Allied effort during World War II, and a retired FBI agent, who worked on a squad that nailed the aforementioned wiseguy  –  

each cited love of country in ripping the story as nonsense.

“I would find it hard to believe that American mobsters would knowingly assist any terrorist group. These guys are actually somewhat patriotic,” said the former G-Man. 

A spokesman for the Associated Press, Jack Stokes, said the wire service stands by its story.

One such patriot, Genovese underboss Venero (Benny Eggs) Mangano, (left) whom we told you about last month, was finally released from a federal halfway house last week and sent home to serve out the final month of his 15 year sentence under house arrest. Benny Eggs, who at 85 suffers a host of ailments and is nearly blind, flew tail gunner on 33 bombing missions over Europe and was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Another is legendary 86-year-old Genovese capo Matthew (Matty the Horse) Ianniello, who recently pleaded guilty to labor racketeering in a plea deal that he hopes will enable him to spend his last days at home in Old Westbury, not as a federal prison inmate.

His plea bargain calls for Matty the Horse to ultimately receive from 18 to 24 months and forfeit $1 million for using his control of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents 15,000 city school bus drivers, to shake down the owners of bus companies from 1997 and 2005.

Ianniello, a corporal in the Sixth Army, was an artillery gunner in the Philippines from 1943 until December 1945. He was awarded a Bronze Star for heroism for saving dozens of lives when his unit was fired on by a U.S. machine gun installation. He snaked his way through the friendly fire zone, crawled into the

machine gunner’s pit, and alerted the installation of its deadly mistake, according to Nicholas Kaizer, an Ianniello attorney who used those facts to win his client’s release on a $5 million bond when he was arrested last year.

Ianniello, (right) who was awarded a purple heart and survived shrapnel wounds in grenade attacks, also lived to tell about a fatal attack much closer to home 25 years after World War II. 

In the early morning hours of April 7, 1972, Ianniello was seated at his sea food eatery in Little Italy, Umberto’s Clam House, when Crazy Joe Gallo was shot to death as he celebrated his 43d birthday with his wife, her daughter and a small group of friends. 

Matty the Horse, whose mob moniker derived from his stocky 6-ft, 220-pound frame, isn’t mentioned in any of the police reports of the shooting, but according to then-NYPD detective chief Albert Seedman, Ianniello was in the place when Gallo was attacked.

As the Gallo party was enjoying its second round of shrimp, scungilli and clams, Crazy Joe was shot and mortally wounded. He staggered outside.

With Gallo dying on the corner of Hester and Mulberry Streets, his bodyguard

stuck a pistol in Ianniello’s face and threatened to kill him for setting up his boss.

“You think I’m crazy to let this happen in this place?” stammered Matty the Horse. “I don’t know nothing.” 

Ianniello, who had opened Umberto’s Clam House two months earlier – over the years, it has been in the names of various Ianniello brothers – knew an awful lot about owning and operating restaurants, bars and topless clubs in Manhattan, including when to keep his mouth shut. He left before police arrived.

A 1975 NYPD Organized Crime Control Bureau report found that he controlled more than 80 Manhattan bars and restaurants, primarily in midtown, through a business network that included holding companies, a talent agency, an interior decorating firm, a garbage collecting company and vending machine companies. 

“You don’t run a bar and grill or sex establishment between 34^th and 59^th Streets from Fifth Avenue to the Hudson River without Matty having a piece of the action,” an NYPD mob expert told The New York Times in 1977.

A close Ianniello associate at the time, according to The Times, was John Mink, an old Army buddy who joined the NYPD when the war ended and retired in 1966 as a captain, according to the The Times account. 

Michael Franzese, the Yuppie Don who quit the mob in the late 1980s and now makes a living talking about it, had nearly 10 million good reasons to chuckle last week when he told Gang Land that he hoped to be to able pay his restitution and fine during his lifetime.

Franzese, 52, was ordered to make restitution of $10 million and pay a $35,000 fine when he pleaded guilty 20 years ago. According to court records, Franzese owes $9,972,120 in restitution and fines, plus interest that Gang Land couldn’t begin to try to calculate.

At his set rate of $500 a month, Franzese would have to live another 1666 years – give or take a few – to pay it off. That’s even longer than Methuselah, the legendary biblical figure, or the Yuppie Don’s legendary old man, Colombo underboss John (Sonny) Franzese, who’s still trucking at 89.

Meanwhile, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia is still trying to decide when and how best to dispose of the pending racketeering charges against mob prince John (Junior) Gotti, whose third trial stemming from the 1992 shooting of Curtis Sliwa ended in a mistrial two weeks ago.

Our friends over at The Smoking Gun website are giving Gang Land readers 25 numbered bookmarks featuring the late Mafia boss John Gotti to help  celebrate and promote the publication of their latest book of lists, “The Dog Dialed 911.”

Each bookmark features this rookie card mug shot of the Dapper Don's first arrest and a swatch of the prison duds he wore at Marion Federal Penitentiary. Check out the website to learn more about the book, the mug shot, how The Smoking Gun got the prison threads, and how you can get your own collector's item, absolutely free.

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.