When a bevy of law enforcement officials recently went looking for a venue for a party to mark the 15^th anniversary of the landmark conviction of late godfather John Gotti, there was an obvious first choice for the bash: Sparks Steak House, the midtown eatery where Gotti spectacularly rubbed out his predecessor, Paul Castellano. 

Like Big Paul, however, that idea was quickly shot down.

“Having it at Sparks would (have) put us on Page Six the next day,” said one attendee who, like most of the bashful celebrants, declined to speak for attribution. 

Instead, the gathering was discreetly shifted a few blocks south to another venerable locale, Keens Steakhouse on West 36^th St. Although details of the event were guarded like an ultra-secret FBI 302 report, Gang Land has learned that the party was held March 31, two days before the official anniversary of Gotti’s April 2, 1992 conviction.

Among the more than 50 FBI agents and prosecutors at Keens were former Brooklyn U.S. attorney Andrew Maloney and his entire prosecution team, as well as Bruce Mouw, the head of the FBI squad that bugged a secret lair above the

Dapper Don’s Little Italy social club and obtained the evidence that ended his reign.

The lead trial prosecutor, John Gleeson, and the FBI case agent, George Gabriel, made brief welcoming remarks to the group. Neither Gleeson, who is now a federal judge in Brooklyn, nor Gabriel, who retired last year, mentioned Gotti’s name in their greetings, according to several attendees, who all described the event as “very lowkey.” (Gleeson, right, and Gabriel with paralegal Karyn Kenney in 1992 photo.) 

Gleeson, who headed Maloney’s organized crime unit, and Gabriel, were in charge of the guest list, Gang Land learned, and, unlike Gotti’s “Leave the wives at home” policy for his notorious mob parties, invitees were allowed to bring along their wives and husbands. 

“It was really a get together of a lot of prosecutors and agents who worked organized crime cases in Brooklyn during the ‘80s and ‘90s, almost like a college reunion with spouses included,” said one attendee. Some of the prosecutors and agents had also gotten together for dinner five years ago, on the 10^th anniversary of Gotti’s conviction.  

“There were no speeches or backslapping, even at the bar before dinner,” said another. 

Gleeson’s co-prosecutors, James Orenstein, now a U.S. Magistrate Judge on Long Island, Laura Ward, currently an Acting Supreme Court Justice in

Manhattan, and Patrick Cotter, who is a defense lawyer in Chicago, also attended the party, sources said. (Cotter, Orenstein and Ward in 1992 Photo)

“It wasn’t about us getting together to gloat, but to catch up with people we had worked incredibly hard with during the 1980s and 1990s,” said Ward, the only attendee reached by Gang Land who did not demand anonymity before acknowledging the event. 

The get-Gotti team took an inclusive approach to their crime-busting achievement, including numerous prosecutors and agents who had little or nothing to do with the Gotti case, but were instrumental in winning convictions of Vittorio (Vic) Amuso, Vincent (Chin) Gigante and Victor (Little Vic) Orena, the respective leaders of the Luchese, Genovese and Colombo families. 

There was little doubt, however, that the Gotti takedown was the central focus of the get-together. Most of the attendees recalled only too clearly that Gotti’s conviction came five years after the swashbuckling crime boss dealt prosecutors a humiliating blow in 1987 when he became the first mob leader to beat a racketeering indictment, a feat that earned him, however briefly, his other monicker – the “Teflon Don.” 

Last week, a Manhattan federal prosecutor cited the Sparks Steak House slayings (left) in an effort to get some extra-heavy prison time for Salvatore (Fat Sally) Scala,  an ailing Gambino capo who has never been charged with the killings but was implicated in them by turncoat mobster Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano. 

“We could prove he was the shooter on those two murders,” said assistant U.S. attorney Eric Snyder, asking Judge Lewis Kaplan to throw the book at Scala (left) and give him up to 17.5 years in prison for extortion and tax evasion. Scala, 64, was found guilty of shaking down a Manhattan strip club and ordered to forfeit $667,000 – the feds say he took in close to $2.5 million and kicked up many thousands to Peter Gotti and Gene Gotti.  

When Kaplan, who usually accedes to government requests, voiced reluctance to heed Snyder, especially after he conceded that the feds would not use Gravano to obtain an indictment, the prosecutor quickly came up with an alternative plan, one that tangentially involved Gang Land. 

The prosecutor said that after Scala read in Gang Land – an apparent reference to a December 16, 1999 column – that the feds believed that he was one of four drug dealers Gotti chose to serve as shooters in the killings, Fat Sally (right) exhibited what prosecutors like to describe as a consciousness of guilt. 

“We have a witness who will testify that he went to (mob

associate) Jimmy Labate with a bag of guns,” said Snyder, implying that Scala had Labate (left) – currently incarcerated on unrelated stock fraud charges and due out of prison next year – dispose of the cache and that the murder weapon was part of it.  

Many consider Gang Land to be the final word on life and death issues as they relate to organized crime. But why Scala would act on something he read in Gang Land in 1999 when the information had come out seven years earlier at Gotti’s trial, is hard to fathom. Snyder didn’t explain it in court, and declined to discuss it with Gang Land. 

In court, Snyder asked Kaplan, who as sentencing judge has the discretion to consider unproven allegations in determining an appropriate sentence, to weigh those allegations, as well as another that he killed a onetime FBI informer in 1988, and impose a stiff sentence. 

But the judge would have none of that, even though he noted in his sentencing remarks that Fat Sally was more sinner than saint and had “done a great many horrible things” in his life. 

Kaplan gave Scala, who has liver cancer, six years, stating: “It would be wrong to impose a sentence that would necessarily result in you dying in prison.” 

In an unusual written addendum, Kaplan (right) reinforced that position, recommending that the director of the Bureau of Prisons move to reduce Scala’s sentence “to avoid having the defendant die in prison … should it appear that defendant’s life expectance is six months or less.”

It’s not nearly as gripping as the drunken, knock-down brawl that Tony Soprano and brother-in-law Bobby Bacala engaged in last Sunday over Tony’s bawdy off-key version of The Drifters hit, “Under the Boardwalk,” but Gang Land fans might see a familiar face in a bit part in the second “Sopranos” episode this Sunday.  

In a brief appearance, Gang Land plays a so-called Mafia expert. But don’t blink, you might miss it.  

(We can't say what happens next in the series, but we did note that a fired-up U.S. Attorney, played by real-life Manhattan assistant district attorney Dan Castleman invoked the dreaded "RICO" word in reference to Tony as he bawled out a hapless local prosecutor who tried to bag the crime boss on a laughably weak gun possession charge.)