As if four murders weren’t enough, Brooklyn prosecutors want to throw another mob hit at former FBI agent R. Lindley DeVecchio. And this time, the victim is a former Manhattan abortion doctor who was shot to death at his Queens home. 

Citing the murder as a “prior bad act” similar to four slayings charged in the indictment, prosecutors have sought permission to introduce evidence of DeVecchio’s alleged involvement in the 1980 rubout of Eliezer Shkolnik at the ex-agent’s upcoming trial. 

Allegations that link DeVecchio to the Shkolnik killing and other “bad acts,” Gang Land has learned, are contained in sealed court papers that the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office filed with Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach, the judge in the blockbuster murder case against the retired G-man.

Prosecutors say the slaying of Shkolnik, who had lost his license to practice medicine in 1976, was set in motion by DeVecchio in the fall of 1980, when he allegedly alerted Colombo mobster Gregory Scarpa Sr. (left) that the ex-doctor was cooperating in a tax probe of the gangster, with whom he shared a mistress. 

DeVecchio’s warning to Scarpa allegedly came shortly after the agent won FBI approval to restore the wiseguy

to top echelon informer status after a five year hiatus triggered by a dispute over money that Scarpa had with his former control agent. 

Sources say that Scarpa’s son, Gregory Jr., has told prosecutors that he and a member of his late father’s crew, Joseph (Joe Brewster) DeDomenico, killed Shkolnik, 52. They carried out the murder, Scarpa Jr. claims, after DeVecchio alerted the elder Scarpa that the defrocked doctor, who served as administrator for a Manhattan women's clinic where he had practiced as a doctor, was an informer for the Internal Revenue Service. Scarpa Jr. would kill DeDomenico (right) seven years later, again on orders from his father, allegedly with help from DeVecchio. 

Allegations linking DeVecchio to Shkolnik’s murder were first reported last year by Gang Land. At the time, Shkolnik’s son Hunter, currently a lawyer in Manhattan, told Gang Land that he was away at college when his father was killed.

Several months later, detectives told him it was unlikely that they would be able to solve the case. “They had hit a wall,” he said. And they suggested that Shkolnik and other family members not try to retrieve his father’s business, advice they readily accepted.

“That’s what they said to us. ‘Don’t do it. You don’t want to get involved. It’s probably what got your father killed.’ Now that I’m

looking back at the things that were said to us at the time…. In retrospect, they may have been right,” he said.

The younger Scarpa, now 56 and serving a 40-year term that doesn’t end until 2035, remembers details of the December 3, 1980 early morning killing of Shkolnik very well, he has told prosecutors.

Sources say he has told prosecutors the Shkolnik murder was his first homicide, and was a special request from his father, who was proud of the work he did.

The elder Scarpa, who died of AIDs in 1994, gave him the ex-doctor’s address, gave him a picture of his target, and said: “Do this for me,” Scarpa Jr. has told authorities.

After he and DeDomenico killed Shkolnik in the vestibule of his Forest Hills

apartment building, they drove to Manhattan and threw the murder weapon into a sewer, he told prosecutors, stating that Joe Brewster told his father that Scarpa Jr. had handled his assignment very well. “He was proud of me,” Scarpa Jr. recalled, said one source.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers declined to comment about the so-called Molineaux Motion, which sources say the judge sealed after it was filed            Tuesday.

Last year, DeVecchio attorney Mark Bederow (left)  labeled the allegations as “pure fantasy. We said it before, and we will say it again: Lin is innocent. The idea that Lin DeVecchio conspired with Greg Scarpa Sr. to murder anyone is ludicrous. It didn’t happen.”  

Gregory Scarpa Jr. says otherwise, however, and Brooklyn prosecutors want him to relate that from the witness stand, a move that DeVecchio’s attorneys are sure to oppose.

Some embarrassing legal moves at a pre-trial hearing forced two veteran prosecutors off the prosecution team this week. As a result, Judge Reichbach postponed the long-delayed trial until October 1 to give two replacement prosecutors sufficient time to get up to speed in the case.

At the hearing – during which the sole issue was whether the prosecution used testimony for which DeVecchio had received immunity in its case – veteran anti-corruption prosecutor Kevin Richardson and appeals specialist Monique Ferrell revealed that they had read DeVecchio’s immunized testimony in preparing for the hearing.

Under questioning by defense attorney Douglas Grover (right) last week, Ferrell testified she never considered setting up an “ethical screen” to prevent trial prosecutors like herself from possibly being tainted by DeVecchio’s immunized testimony during the hearing.

During Richardson’s testimony, Reichbach interrupted the defense lawyer and asked the prosecutor why the DA’s office didn’t assign other attorneys to conduct the hearing to remove any possibility that the trial team would be “exposed” to the forbidden testimony.

Richardson said he didn’t know. He did know, he testified, that in order to conduct the hearing it was “necessary to understand the material that was the

subject matter.” The transcripts apparently had all the impact of a summer throwaway paperback: The prosecutor insisted that the material would not affect his “prosecution decision-making in any way.”  

Judge Reichbach (left) wasn’t satisfied. He said he was troubled – “a bit befuddled,” he put it – by the decision to use the trial prosecutors at the hearing. He then asked the name of the supervisor in the DA’s office who had made that decision. Again, Richardson said he didn’t know.

Rather than risk a possible negative ruling on the immunity issue at the end of the trial, the DA’s office decided Tuesday to replace Richardson and Ferrell with mob prosecutor Laura Neubauer and appeals lawyer Jacqueline Linares. The team is led by Rackets Bureau Chief Michael Vecchione, and includes assistant district attorney Joel Alexis.

As DA’s office spokesman Jerry Schmetterer put it: “In order to protect against any problems down the line, we volunteered to make some changes in the prosecution team.”

After hanging tough for a year on a stock fraud indictment, Gambino family wiseguy John (Johnny G) Gammarano (right) caved-in last week when the feds made him a sweet last-minute plea bargain offer that was too good for the veteran gangster to pass up.

In the plea deal, Johnny G agreed to serve 33 to 41 months in prison. In the end, however, the sentence could be a life term for the cancer-stricken 66-year-old. His life-threatening ailments, which have been a bone of contention for months, came up again last Thursday as he pleaded guilty to racketeering in Brooklyn Federal Court.

The issue arose when Judge Brian Cogan told Johnny G that his age and health had been factored into his plea deal and that his lawyer would not be permitted to request a lesser term for health reasons at sentencing.

Gammarano recently underwent surgery for lung cancer and goes for follow up tests every three months. When he asked what would happen if his cancer returned, he was told that it was a risk he took in pleading guilty, and would have to live with it.

He hopes he does.  

Johnny G and 40-year-old codefendant William Scotto, whose plea deal has no health strings attached and also faces a recommended 33 to 41 months, are currently set for sentencing on November 9.

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.