No matter which way he turns, the smoke keeps getting thicker around acting Bonanno capo Nicholas (P.J.) Pisciotti. 

P.J. became a mob poster boy of sorts for Mayor Bloomberg’s Smoke Free Air Act last year when Gang Land disclosed that he allegedly sent a rival crime family associate to the hospital in a bloody Little Italy brawl sparked by the associate, the manager of a Broome Street eatery, telling P.J. (right) and his pals they shouldn’t be lighting up inside his place. Pisciotti was scheduled for trial this year on assault charges in Manhattan Supreme Court. 

Moments after the incident, Pisciotti readily admitted punching out Joseph (Joe Clams) Caruso. “Fuck it. I did it,” he told cops, according to court papers. But he later pleaded innocent, claiming that Joe Clams started the fisticuffs and that P.J. had merely defended himself. 

Early this year, Pisciotti tried to put aside his cigarette-smoking battles, and booked a trip to Miami and the anticipated donnybrook between the high-scoring Indianapolis Colts and the defense-minded Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI. Then things suddenly got worse. 

On February 1, when P.J. arrived at Kennedy Airport, waiting FBI agents canceled his flight plans to the Sunshine State. The G-men charged him with violating federal laws pertaining to a different kind of smoke – marijuana – and promptly deposited him at the dreary federal lockup in Brooklyn.

Pisciotti’s new smoking infraction, according to a complaint by FBI agent Michael Breslin, concerned his alleged role in a lucrative marijuana business

run by former acting boss Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano. The pot business allegedly ran from 2001 through 2004, moving some 6000 pounds of ganja, with an estimated wholesale value of $18 million, each year. 

Each month during those years, the complaint said, Vinny Gorgeous and his partner, soldier Anthony (Bruno) Indelicato, (left) received two 250-pound shipments from Canada that “were transported to New York by car and concealed in duffel bags.” They paid $2300 a pound, and sold it to Pisciotti for $2800 to $3300 per pound, the complaint said. 

For his part, P.J. purchased 25-pound loads that he broke down and distributed on his own, said the complaint, which was based largely on information provided by Basciano’s former right-hand man, turncoat mobster Dominick Cicale. 

Cicale reported that following Basciano’s November 2004 arrest, Pisciotti was hopeful that another “load might be coming from Canada” because P.J. “had customers to sell to,” said the complaint, which described Pisciotti, 37, as a “knock around guy.”

As a knock around guy who had already done four years in prison for a 1990 drug rap, P.J. quickly realized that his cigarette smoking assault case was the least of his worries. 

He now faced up to 20 years for drug trafficking, and a U.S. magistrate judge ordered him held without bail after federal prosecutor Amy Busa cited his

violent actions against Joe Clams, another alleged assault a year earlier, as well as an alleged plot to murder Basciano’s successor as acting boss, Michael (Mikey Nose) Mancuso. (right)

The case against P.J. was an obvious spinoff of the ongoing prosecution of Basciano, whose re-trial for the 2001 murder of Frank Santoro began last month. Cicale has testified against Vinny Gorgeous, and assistant U.S. attorney Busa and FBI agent Breslin are part of a seven-member prosecution trial team.

As rapidly as Pisciotti’s situation had deteriorated, however, it got better. And then some. 

On February 21, he was released on a $3 million bond after a judge decided that Busa’s evidence that he was a danger to the community was thin, and that property posted by friends and relatives as security was enough to insure his future court appearances. 

Little did Judge Robert Levy know that future appearances would not be necessary. Two weeks later, without explanation, Busa moved to drop the drug charges against P.J.

Two months later, he got an even better gift when he showed up for his assault trial and assistant district attorney David Hammer said he was dropping those

charges. Better than the federal dismissal because unlike those charges – which can be filed again – New York's double jeopardy statutes bar the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office from resurrecting its case. 

By way of explanation, said Hammer, the case had been taken over by Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf, (left) whose office had hit Pisciotti with drug charges in February and then dropped them the following month. 

That explanation seems a bit thin, however. It’s hard to imagine how the feds could turn an assault in a dispute over the city’s anti-smoking law into a racketeering charge. And even if they could, they’d be able to do it whether P.J’s assault case ended in a conviction or an acquittal. 

Perhaps Hammer thought the self-defense claim put forth by lawyer Jeremy Schneider last fall when Gang Land broke the story would fly, and he dropped the charges rather than wage a losing battle. After all, videotapes turned over to the defense clearly showed that Joe Clams and his cronies had thrown the first punches in the row. 

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office simply repeated what Hammer told Judge Michael Obus on May 10, and declined any further comment. 

Spokesmen for the FBI and U.S. Attorney Mauskopf were equally closed-mouth about the short-lived federal drug case against P.J. Mauskopf’s spokesman, Robert Nardoza, cited a gag order by the judge at Basciano’s trial as his reason for declining to comment. 

Meanwhile, as P.J. looks over his shoulder, wondering where his next problem will come from, Basciano’s re-trial drones on, with the jury expected to get the case by the end of the month. 

The key question in Gang Land’s mind is not whether the jury will reach a unanimous verdict this time – the prior one found him guilty of racketeering but hung 11-1 for conviction on the Santoro murder – but why Mauskopf’s office is retrying Vinny Gorgeous now.  

Basciano, 47, was sure to get the maximum 20 years for his racketeering conviction. Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis gave 68-year-old codefendant Patrick (Patty From The Bronx) DeFilippo 40 years for his conviction. And Vinny Gorgeous still faces another trial in which he faces life, and possible execution, if found guilty of a 2004 contract killing. 

Asked why trying Basciano again at this time wasn’t a waste of time and money since Mauskopf could have found a way to re-try him on the Santoro murder later if Vinny Gorgeous won an acquittal in the capital punishment case, spokesman Nardoza declined to comment, again giving the ongoing trial as his reason.

International Longshoreman’s Association president John Bowers – the focal point of a massive civil racketeering suit that seeks to rid the scandal-tarred dockworkers’ union of mob influence – is likely to resign his post at the ILA’s international convention later this month in Hollywood, Florida, Gang Land has learned. 

The embattled 82-year-old union boss, whose dad was a much-feared waterfront enforcer in his day, has already announced that he is retiring as president of the ILA’s powerful Atlantic Coast District. But Bowers has also stated that he expects to step down as ILA president as well, according to ILA spokesman Jim McNamara. 

“He has not indicated officially what his intentions are regarding the ILA presidency, but he’s told friends that he’s probably going to retire,” McNamara told Gang Land. “He hasn’t said it officially yet, but that’s what he has told friends,” said McNamara who was reached on his way to the two-week-long convention.

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.