Ailing Colombo soldier Joseph (Jo Jo) Russo (left) was on the verge of winning at least one little skirmish with the feds this week. The victory was going to taste sweet, coming as it did after Jo Jo’s mostly losing 13-year-battle to overturn a murder conviction because of allegedly corrupt activities by a scandal-tarred FBI agent. 

Citing his rapidly failing health, the imprisoned Russo, 53, had won an unusual hearing for a medical furlough as the court weighed a motion to dismiss his 1994 conviction on the grounds that it was tainted by murders and other crimes allegedly committed by ex-FBI agent R. Lindley DeVecchio. 

Alas it was not to be. Two days before the scheduled Tuesday hearing, Russo, who had won a reversal of his guilty verdict in 1997 only to have it re-instated by an appeals court the following year, succumbed to cancer at a maximum security prison hospital in Butner, North Carolina. 

Brooklyn Federal Judge Charles Sifton, who had given prosecutors until August 30 to reply to a motion to set aside the conviction based essentially on charges in the pending murder case against DeVecchio, (below, right) had agreed to the bail hearing because of Russo’s grave medical prognosis.

His death triggered allegations by family members and his attorney that Jo Jo’s

jailers had hastened Russo’s demise by ignoring – even ridiculing – his complaints about back pains for more than a year. 

“They gave him Tylenol and told him his pain was psychological, and to just deal with it,” said one family member.

“The way the Bureau of Prisons treats inmates, and their families, is an atrocity,” said Russo’s lawyer George Galgano, stating that prison officials neglected his client’s ailments and totally disregarded repeated concerns raised by Russo’s family.

It wasn’t until Russo had lost 50 pounds and the lawyer fired off a letter to the Lewisburg federal prison warden five weeks ago complaining that his client was getting substandard medical care at the facility that Russo was first sent to a community hospital and examined by a doctor, said Galgano.

After week-long stretches in two community hospitals, where Russo’s family members were not permitted to visit, or speak to his doctors, he was finally

transferred to the Butner facility. He died there Sunday, as his family members waited to visit, the lawyer said.

Scott Finley, an executive assistant at Lewisburg, would not discuss specifics. But he insisted that Russo received “appropriate medical care” at the Pennsylvania prison until doctors felt the inmate needed more specialized treatment and transferred him to the medical center in Butner on July 12, just 17 days before he died.

By July 25, according to a report by Butner medical officer, Dr. Maitee Serrano-Mercado, Russo had “widespread and aggressive” cancer, which had been diagnosed as renal (kidney) cancer less than a month earlier, and had spread to his liver, lungs and spine. Russo had “an estimated three months or less to live,” the report concluded.

Meanwhile, even though Russo’s death makes his appeal a moot issue, Galgano told Gang Land he intends to continue the court fight to clear his client’s name.

More likely, however, codefendants Anthony (Chuckie) Russo, 54, (left) a cousin, and Joseph (Joe Monte) Monteleone, 68, will take up the cause. Like Jo Jo, they also received life sentences after their convictions were restored by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

To look at him, it would be awfully tough to label Anthony (Fat Anthony) Rabito a danger to the community. He’s 73, has diabetes, heart disease, ulcers, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. He can’t stand up more than a minute or two, a result of knee surgery last year. He can hardly walk.

A Korean War veteran and one of 11 children, Rabito (right) sat in Brooklyn Federal Court last week and listened as his lawyer asked that he be released on home detention so he could help care for his ailing 80-year-old sister Angie, with whom he lived until he was arrested and jailed six months ago.

His last two surviving brothers, Sal and Joe passed away in June, and Fat Anthony was the only sibling Angie had left, said lawyer David Breitbart.

“The situation is a sad one. She’s very sick with cancer. We make this plea so he can help Angie in this end game. We’re not looking to walk the streets. He’s looking to help his sister,” the attorney said. 

No, said assistant U.S. attorney Greg Andres.

“Without sounding callous, Mr. Rabito’s family losses are simply not legally relevant in any way,” said Andres, sounding awfully callous as he spoke. The prosecutor may have been thinking of other things, however. He is one of two prosecutors often mentioned as a possible successor to departing Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf.

No, said Judge Sandra Townes, (left) who described herself to the Daily News as “a tough, but fair judge” when she was elevated to the federal bench in 2004.

Fat Anthony struggled to his feet. “Thank you, judge,” he said. He then hobbled out of court and back to jail where he will await trial in October for racketeering charges of gambling, loansharking, and extortion, as his sister Angie fends for herself.

It’s déjà vu all over again for attorney Joseph Corozzo, one of the hottest mob lawyers in town in recent months.

No sooner had Corozzo, the namesake son of Joseph (Jo Jo) Corozzo – the Gambino family’s consigliere – signed on to defend family soldier William Scotto in an upcoming racketeering trial that the feds were citing him as the family’s “house counsel” and looking to oust him from the case for numerous conflicts of interests.

This time, prosecutors say Corozzo (right) allegedly engaged in conduct that “borders on” the crimes of “witness tampering and obstruction of justice” by taking up to $20,000 in illegal payoffs in a 1999 case, and should be bounced from the trial of Scotto and John (Johnny G) Gammarano.

In court papers, prosecutors state that a mob turncoat, Sal Romano, also paid for several lavish parties that Corozzo threw at Romano’s Staten Island restaurant in return for the lawyer’s help in ensuring that a “weak” stock broker he represented at the time stayed strong and did not implicate Romano in a corrupt stock fraud scheme.

“One party involved dozens of people and cost thousands of dollars,” said prosecutors Jeffrey Goldberg and Daniel Silver, who also cited Corozzo’s loyalty to his father, (left) and uncle Nicholas (Little Nick) Corozzo, a powerful family capo, as reasons why the lawyer should not be allowed to represent Scotto.

His “familial loyalty” to his dad and his Uncle Nick would surely dissuade Corozzo from blaming them for the security fraud and other crimes in the indictment, even though as family leaders they would have shared in the plunder and would be prime targets for a savvy defense, the prosecutors said.

The trial is slated to begin next month.

Corozzo, who did not return a call for comment, will surely oppose his ouster.

Bonanno gangster Vincent (Vinny Gorgeous) Basciano (right) was convicted of racketeering and a 2001 murder Tuesday after a six-weeklong re-trial that served as a costly warm-up for a capital murder trial that the imprisoned mobster faces next spring.

“He was obviously upset,” defense lawyer James Kousouros said of his client, who could be heard grousing, “It doesn't look good,” even before the jury announced its verdict.

A Mauskopf spokesman, who last month cited the ongoing case when he declined to respond to Gang Land’s assertion that the re-trial was a waste of time and money since Vinny Gorgeous faces possible execution for a December 1, 2004 murder in a pending indictment, again ducked that issue.

This time, spokesman Bob Nardoza cited the fact that Basciano is awaiting sentencing for Tuesday’s conviction as well as “the pending capital proceedings.” 

It’s unclear whether Kousouros will represent Basciano in his next trial (the volatile gangster changed lawyers after his last trial.) But the attorney seemed to undercut the government’s plans to execute Vinny Gorgeous during his cross examination of key prosecution witness, Dominick Cicale, at the recent trial.

Cicale testified that after Basciano was arrested and jailed in November of 2004, Cicale called off the murder of Randy Pizzolo. He set the slaying in motion later, he said, “from the order of Michael Mancuso,” (left) who succeeded Vinny Gorgeous as acting Bonanno boss and is charged, but not facing the death penalty, in the same indictment.

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.