to the effect that Cutolo (right) should be coming home, or popping up soon,” according to a September 18, 2003 report by FBI agent Nora Conley. 

Despite that optimistic prediction, Vitale said that both he and his boss, Joseph Massino, had assumed that Wild Bill was dead, the report states. 

On September 27, 2007, however, Vitale’s memory suddenly improved. He now recalls that Persico implicated himself in Cutolo’s murder. With that evidence at hand, prosecutors Deborah Mayer, Jeffrey Goldberg and John Buretta told turncoat DeCavalcante capo Anthony Rotondo and mob associate Chris Paciello to stay home, and added Good Looking Sal as a witness at Perisco’s retrial. 

The prosecutors declined to discuss how Vitale came to recall that important detail.  

An official who is not involved in the case told Gang Land that during Vitale’s initial interviews, which consume 175 pages, FBI agents zeroed in on crimes by Bonanno mobsters who were then awaiting trial or under investigation. “Mobsters like Vitale have been committing murders all their lives,” the official said. “Lots of times, details don’t stand out to them. Until you focus them, they often don’t mention important facts.”  

Persico’s attorney Sarita Kedia (left) wasn’t shy about discussing the not so nice things Good Looking Sal was planning to say

against Allie. She told the jury in her opening remarks. 

“Vitale is going to come here and tell you that he met Mr. Persico in October of 1999. And that Mr. Persico confessed to killing Billy Cutolo. And he is going to tell you that he first tells the government about it a few weeks ago,” said Kedia, cautioning  the jurors to reject his “remarkable recollection, triggered, I am sure, by the government’s prodding.” 

Kedia earned the wrath of the trial judge when she cagily got around a prohibition against telling jurors that this was the second trial for Persico and key aide John (Jackie) DeRoss by noting that Vitale “wasn’t called at a prior proceeding” against her client. 

At a sidebar session, Cedarhurst Federal Court Judge Joanna Seybert (right) noted that Kedia was “connecting the dots for the jury so that it will be inescapable that the defendants were previously tried.” The judge ordered the attorney to not use terms that “create the impression that the government dropped the ball in the other proceeding, and now they’re coming in and trying to correct it.” 

DeRoss’s lawyer, Robert LaRusso said that not only Vitale was “aware of what the government needed” in terms of testimony at the retrial. LaRusso said the defense intended to raise that issue with other witnesses and seek to argue in closing arguments that the turncoats tailored their testimony to fit the prosecution’s need. 

Prosecutor Buretta countered that Vitale, who is incarcerated in a special unit for cooperating witnesses, “doesn’t even know that Mr. Persico had a prior trial.”

From the witness stand last week, former Gambino capo Michael (Mikey Scars) DiLeonardo underscored the theory of the prosecution’s case, namely that Persico (left) saw Cutolo as a threat and killed him to prevent him from taking over the crime family. 

DiLeonardo testified that in early 1999, he warned Persico that Wild Bill, whose crew had fired the opening shots of the bloody Colombo war in 1991, was still a threat, and not one to be taken lightly. 

“Not that I disliked Billy, but Billy was very difficult,” said Mikey Scars. “I took a shot with Allie, and told him that Bill has boss mentality. He knew what I meant, ‘boss mentality.’ He was aggressive. He was like that with everybody. And Billy was a threat to Allie. I think he would have killed him. I know he would have killed Allie in time.” 

“Billy had boss mentality. He wasn’t going to stay as a soldier under Allie. He became very aggressive again. You could see him coming like a train. He had a lot of momentum behind him. He wasn’t about to sit still. It wasn’t his nature. He was a very aggressive fellow. He was all about Cosa Nostra, and he wanted to wear the main hat.”

A frustrated and angry John (Junior) Gotti lashed out at the FBI and The New York Post this week, claiming that they have worked together to place him and his family members in danger of being whacked by the mob. 

In what began as a simple denial of charges that appeared in Monday's editions, Gotti and lawyer Charles Carnesi ripped the paper and its unnamed FBI source for having “an agenda for trying to damage John.” Gotti, wearing sunglasses and pointing at a bank of TV cameras, made his remarks in an impromptu news conference on the steps of the federal courthouse in White Plains after a brief appearance on an unrelated tax matter. 

As Carnesi was denying allegations that his client had been involved in five or six murders and cocaine dealings, Gotti pushed his attorney aside and charged that actions by The Post and the agent had put him and his children in “harms way.” 

Under questioning by Pablo Guzman of Channel 2 News, Gotti and Carnesi accused The Post of playing a similar role last year when the paper reported that Gotti’s admission of mob involvement at his trial had led to subpoenas of his brother and friends to testify before a grand jury probing the Gambino family. At the same time, Carnesi charged, FBI agents were handing out

subpoenas to Gotti's friends and former cohorts, saying, “You can thank John for this.” 

“My family lives in fear as a result of that,” said Gotti. “Does it make it all better if I get one in the head as a result of what this agent did with The Post. Does it make it all better if I get found in the street,” he added bitterly. His outburst came minutes after a positive ruling from a judge handling a tax problem stemming from his 1999 racketeering conviction. 

“We’ve never gotten a fair shake from that publication,” Carnesi said of the tabloid. “It’s clear that publication has .... acted as a shill  for agents of the FBI with an agenda to try and damage John.” 

Meanwhile, Gotti who offered to take a lie detector test about anything that he did if the agent would also submit to one about his actions, rejected an offer of a $100,000 payday from Curtis Sliwa if he passed a polygraph exam on one issue: Whether he ordered the 1992 assault on the Guardian Angels founder.