Coming soon to a courthouse near you: The John (Junior) Gotti case – Take Four. Or is it Take Five? 

While the feds have dropped their efforts to prosecute the ex-Mafia boss one more time for the kidnap-shooting of Curtis Sliwa, they have a new plan to nail him for some other alleged mob violence, including a 24-year-old murder, Gang Land has learned. 

Law enforcement sources say the FBI and federal prosecutors have their sights set on the Junior Don for the 1983 slaying of Danny Silva, a 24-year-old Queens man stabbed to death during a barroom brawl at which Gotti has acknowledged being present, but a killing for which he has denied any responsibility. 

The feds developed evidence against Gotti for the Silva murder several years ago, according to the sources, even before they obtained the indictment alleging the Sliwa shooting. But a tactical decision was made, however, to use turncoat capo Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo to prosecute Junior for the 1992 shooting of the Guardian Angels founder instead.

There were good reasons to do so: The animosity between the Gottis and Sliwa

was well documented, the attack was more recent, and Mikey Scars, (left) who became a “made man” in the same induction ceremony as Junior, had fingered his onetime best buddy as the antagonist behind the shooting of the outspoken radio talk-show host.

“The Sliwa case was a much cleaner case, or so it seemed,” said one source, somewhat sheepishly. 

But the feds failed to convince three separate juries that the mob scion, who was imprisoned from 1999 through his first mistrial in 2005, was still part of the Gambino crime family, and that Gotti had been a member during the previous five years, as required even by the prosecutor-favored racketeering statutes. 

A year ago, after four jurors at his third trial accepted the defense argument that Junior had resigned from his late father’s crime family, the Manhattan U.S Attorney’s office dropped the indictment rather than risk further embarrassment at a fourth trial. 

Gang Land’s sources declined to detail whether the feds have uncovered allegations that Gotti was involved in crime family business within the previous five years, or if they had another game plan, such as a murder prosecution under state law, which has no statute of limitations. But the sources say that the

investigation is continuing. Said one source, speaking in cautious legalese: “If a prosecution is warranted, it will be brought in the proper venue.” 

A Queens-based FBI squad that focuses on the Gambino family, and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, are among the agencies involved in the investigation, sources said.  

Gotti, who has long been a suspect in the March 12, 1983 murder at the Silver Fox Bar in Ozone Park, is also being investigated in connection with a second slaying that the sources say is linked to Gambino family activities, but which they would not discuss. 

As Gang Land disclosed a year ago, Gotti told the feds in a 2005 proffer session that despite his innocence in the Silva stabbing, the Gambino family bribed a corrupt detective to squash a probe of his involvement in the killing. He also claimed that, with the detective’s help, the crime family murdered a witness in the case and made it look like a suicide. 

A Gotti cohort  – who had reputedly been assigned by the elder John Gotti to serve as a bodyguard of sorts for the then-19-year-old Junior  –  was originally arrested for the murder, but the death of the witness effectively ended the prosecution.  

Now, with the help of a bar patron who “got jammed up” with legal problems

and has fingered Gotti as the killer, the feds are planning to revive it, sources said.  

“He was in the bar and personally saw Junior stab Danny Silva,” said a source who is familiar with the witness’s account. 

The FBI and the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment on the case.

“There is absolutely nothing to it,” said Gotti’s attorney, Charles Carnesi. “It’s been investigated and reinvestigated for 24 years. They know what happened and it had nothing to do with John.” 

Gotti, who has agreed to pay about $80,000 in back taxes by November 22, is scheduled to appear in White Plains Federal Court then to learn whether Judge Stephen Robinson feels he should be sent back to prison for violating the terms of his supervised release from prison, as prosecutor David Massey asserted last month. 

Junior Gotti claims to have given up his father’s business while serving time in prison. Angelo S. (Junior) Ruggiero, (right) the reputed mobster-son of the elder John Gotti’s longtime right-hand-man-in-crime, hasn’t done either – serve time in prison, or give up his father’s crime business – at least not yet.

But Junior Ruggiero is primed to follow in Junior Gotti’s stated footsteps, if he likes.

By the way, Junior Ruggiero’s old man, the late Angelo Ruggiero, was so close to the younger Gotti that he was called “uncle.” And one of the good turns Uncle Angelo did for his boss’s son was to counsel him in the wake of the Silver Fox murder. 

On the eve of his drug trafficking and money laundering trial in federal court in Central Islip, L.I., young Ruggiero, 35, has copped a plea bargain and agreed to take 63-to-78 months in prison rather than face the possibility of a life sentence if convicted at trial. 

Next week, he’s also scheduled to plead guilty in Manhattan to a federal extortion charge for which he faces about three more years. That gives him plenty of time to get past the five-year statute of limitations requirements of the racketeering statutes, just in case the feds try to charge him with some old mob-related violence when he gets out. 

Former FBI agent R. Lindley DeVecchio is betting the rest of his life that a state Supreme Court Justice who was branded a “dangerous” campus radical by the FBI nearly 40 years ago will give him a fair shake as both judge and jury at his upcoming murder trial.

On Monday, after listening to Brooklyn Judge Gustin Reichbach (left) detail his days as a 1960s anti-war activist at Columbia University and recall with pride how the FBI described him in a 1969 memo as one of the “most dangerous persons” in the Students for a Democratic Society, the ex-agent persisted in his decision to opt for a bench trial. 

“I want the case heard in front of an impartial individual who will assess the facts as presented,” said DeVecchio, who is charged with aiding his longtime mob informer Gregory Scarpa commit four murders from 1984 to 1992. 

Meanwhile, in court papers unsealed this week, DeVecchio’s lawyers argue that Scarpa’s son Gregory Jr., who in 1994 told the FBI he knew nothing of his father’s dealings with DeVecchio (right) but who changed his tune in 1996 after details of the FBI's investigation of the ex-agent's dealings with the elder Scarpa became public, should be “precluded from testifying at trial.” 

In prior court sessions, attorneys Douglas Grover and Mark Bederow noted in the papers, the judge has already stated that before Scarpa Jr., appeared as a trial witness, he should first be questioned to “determine whether his testimony is tainted.” 

Testimony in the case is slated to begin October 15. If convicted, DeVecchio, 67, faces up to 25 years to life in prison.

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.